“COOL: SAN FRANCISCO & SHAKESPEARE”

Of Shakespeare’s 154 sonnets, the first 17 are oft referred to as the “procreation sonnets.” The reason being is that in them, the speaker addresses a youth who, in the speaker’s mind, should be preserved. While Time eventually steals away beauty and spirit, a “copy” of the young man could help carry on his legacy.

A copy could be achieved through procreation, hence the grouping’s title: the procreation sonnets. The following, Sonnet 12, begins with the speaker ruminating over various things that change with time, such as daylight, a tree’s leaves, and the passing of summer. The speaker then turns his attention to the youth, who too will face the demands of Time. He ends his address with a bitter truth:

“And nothing ‘gainst Time’s scythe can make defence”

Yet, possible solution:

“Save breed, to brave him when he takes thee hence.”

When I do count the clock that tells the time,
And see the brave day sunk in hideous night;
When I behold the violet past prime,
And sable curls all silver’d o’er with white;
When lofty trees I see barren of leaves
Which erst from heat did canopy the herd,
And summer’s green all girded up in sheaves
Borne on the bier with white and bristly beard,
Then of thy beauty do I question make,
That thou among the wastes of time must go,
Since sweets and beauties do themselves forsake
And die as fast as they see others grow;
And nothing ‘gainst Time’s scythe can make defence
Save breed, to brave him when he takes thee hence.

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I remember this sonnet above all others. It was high school and I had to take a placement test for AP English (sophomore year). This was the poem we had to analyze.

It wasn’t until after we got the results back that the poem became clearer: Love can make everything seem better. Envy goes out the door and in its place, contentment: at the memory of a one true love.

Let’s take a closer look at this sonnet, line for line now. This is something I’d like to do with all of Shakespeare’s sonnets, beginning with Sonnet 29: “When in disgrace with fortune and men’s eyes” — how sad it starts. Analysis will follow the poem, after the jump. (I did get into the class by the way, *g*.)

When in disgrace with fortune and men’s eyes,
I all alone beweep my outcast state,
And trouble deaf Heaven with my bootless cries,
And look upon myself, and curse my fate,
Wishing me like to one more rich in hope,
Featur’d like him, like him with friends possess’d,
Desiring this man’s art, and that man’s scope,
With what I most enjoy contented least:
Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising,
Haply I think on thee,–and then my state
(Like to the lark at break of day arising
From sullen earth) sings hymns at heaven’s gate;
For thy sweet love remember’d such wealth brings
That then I scorn to change my state with kings’.

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