Sonnet 80

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Sonnet 80

Sonnet 80 1609.jpg

–William Shakespeare

Sonnet 80 is one of 154 sonnets written by the English playwright and poet William Shakespeare. It is a member of the Fair Youth sequence, in which the poet expresses his love towards a young man, and the third sonnet of the Rival Poet subsequence.

Synopsis

Knowing that a better poet is praising the youth, the poet feels inadequate. However, since the youth's value is as big as the ocean there is room for both poets to sail the ships of their verse on it: the impressive galleon of the rival poet and the small vessel of the speaker.

Structure

Sonnet 80 is an English or Shakespearean sonnet. The English sonnet has three quatrains, followed by a final rhyming couplet. It follows the typical rhyme scheme of the form, abab cdcd efef gg and is composed in iambic pentameter, a type of poetic metre based on five pairs of metrically weak/strong syllabic positions. The 10th line exemplifies a regular iambic pentameter:

  ×     / × /   ×    /    ×    /    ×    / 
Whilst he upon your soundless deep doth ride; (80.10)

/ = ictus, a metrically strong syllabic position. × = nonictus.

The meter demands a few variant pronunciations: the 2nd line's "spirit" functions as 1 syllable (possibly pronounced as spear't, sprite, sprit, or spurt), the 7th line's "inferior" as 3 syllables, and the 9th line's "shallowest" as 2.

The sonnet exhibits some common metrical variations, for example, an initial reversal in the 2nd line:

  / ×   ×  /  ×    /     ×   /    ×    / 
Knowing a better spirit doth use your name, (80.2)

Reversals can also occur mid-line, as occurs in line 5; and some may be optional, as the possible initial reversals in lines 1 and 13. Also possible is the rightward movement of the first ictus (the resulting four-position figure, × × / /, is sometimes referred to as a minor ionic):

×   ×     /    /    ×    /  ×  / ×  / 
On your broad main doth wilfully appear. (80.8)

References

First edition and facsimile

Variorum editions

Modern critical editions

• online text