Line by Line Analysis: Sonnet 104
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- Опубликовано: 8 май 2022
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This video will take you through one of Shakespeare’s sonnets with text and visual annotations. Line by line, you'll explore Shakespeare's gift for language and invention.
A big thank-you to the following resources. Without such resources, this video would not have been possible: No Fear Shakespeare, the Oxford Shakespeare, the Arden Shakespeare, shakespeares-sonnets.com, and the artists whose work appears here. Please get in touch if you'd like to know the source of any illustration, clip-art, photograph, or animation.
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Full transcript:
On the surface, this sonnet has a simple message: time cannot erase beauty. I imagine a conversation between an older couple. "Do you still think I'm beautiful?" she asks. "You're as beautiful as the day I met you," he replies. This straightforward idea finds its expression in the sonnet’s first three lines: "To me, fair friend, you never can be old, / For as you were when first your eye I eyed, / Such seems your beauty still." The rest of the poem
details how the seasons have passed and how time has a funny way of progressing without us noticing, like the imperceptible motion of the shadow on a sundial.
I’d like to dig a little deeper and suggest that the descriptions of the passing seasons reflect the couple's emotional journey, the ups and downs in their relationship.
First, we learn that "Three winters cold / Have from the forests shook three summers’ pride." You can imagine summers giving way to winters, the heat fading into cold, but you might also imagine the winter representing one person in the relationship and the summer representing the other. Then the words “cold” and “pride” would refer to people, not seasons. We have one individual whose coldness - their emotional indifference or lack of affection - “shook” the other individual’s pride. It’s like punishing your friend or lover for being too proud, too full of themselves. “I’m so beautiful, aren’t I?” she says, with a sense of pride. He ignores her, hating her immodesty, and she is offended by his silence.
Here are the next two lines: "Three beauteous springs to yellow autumn turned / In process of the seasons have I seen." Do the spring and autumn
refer to individuals here? Or are they phases of the relationship? Things that were “beauteous” in their relationship and charged with the freshness of life that we associate with spring “turned” or “changed,” fading into the more sober colors of autumn. I imagine two people who meet, drawn to each other by their looks, their physical appearances, their “beauty.” They begin a relationship and over time they become familiar with each other’s looks. That initial attraction, “beauteous spring,” which is somewhat superficial, is replaced with something more complicated and rich, a deeper understanding of love and each other, like “yellow autumn,” a season symbolic of abundance but also decline.
Shakespeare then writes, "Three April perfumes in three hot Junes burned." Perfume is sweet and inviting, but fire is unforgiving. Perfume is like a seduction and fire is passion. Perhaps every relationship moves back and forth from perfumed to fiery moments.
One more line to analyze: "Since first I saw you fresh, which yet are green." The words “fresh” and “green” are similar, both reminiscent of spring, and the speaker may be saying something like, “After all this time together,
you’re still the same person to me.” But “green” also means foolish and innocent. Perhaps the speaker is making a snide but humorous remark, saying, “No matter how much time goes by, you’re still a little immature!”
In the last two lines of the sonnet, Shakespeare seems bitter, resentful that time not only steals the beauty of youth, but does so without us noticing. He writes, "Hear this, thou age unbred: / Ere you were born was beauty’s summer dead." He tells us readers, us people of the future, that the most beautiful things, including his friend or lover, died before we were born. How pessimistic! As if Shakespeare couldn't imagine that living today, in the 21st century, we wouldn't be surrounded by all kinds of beauty. But I think this negativity comes from a dark place, a hopeless understanding that time goes by at such a deceptively slow pace that we almost believe it isn't real. The present moment is taken for granted while the future is too distant to imagine and the past is forgotten.
We can relate to Shakespeare's helplessness, but I think he would wish us to live our lives unafraid of time, even as we witness its threatening power and recognize our limitations. If you can find time itself beautiful, you will surely find fulfillment and meaning in your life.
Thanks for listening and I’ll see you next time.
I love ur explanation... 😍😍😍
incredible work
Thank you!
Thank you...helpful vedio
Thanks
I loved this analysis, the poetry goat right here!
I'm glad you enjoyed it so much Ben :)
Fantastic video! Which of his plays do you like best?
I usually like best the play that I'm currently reading and spending the most time with. Right now it's "Othello." If you're unfamiliar with Shakespeare, many of Iago's speeches just come across as difficult, but it's Iago being misleading, purposefully vague, and manipulative. Brilliant.
Does all of this not take place in three years? I thought it was speaking of his (de Vere's) child when three years old. I see "though age unbred..." to be the speaker addressing the child's future years, and that "ere" here means "since," instead of prior or before, that since he was born that the beauty of summer no longer compared to him, had died. I don't mean to argue here, but I do enjoy push-back when discussing such things. Is it not describing 3 years since a child was born, and not a couple, much less an older couple? I mean it talks about first seeing a new "I" eye to eye, the other person born 3 years prior (since he was born), and that since then the skin looks just as beautiful as the first day, and then addresses what I take to be the child's future self saying that since he was born even Summer's beauty pails in comparison. I may be entirely way off though, just a random comment from out here. This is a very beautiful and thoughtful video, and I look forward to seeing more. My understanding is that this sonnet 104 would correspond to September 17th, and so I'd like to read 105 tomorrow on Monday. Anyways have a blessed day, and thanks for this very thoughtful and really beautiful video. I love the style of it!
Thank you for such an insightful comment. My interpretations are completely disconnected from historical data, partly because there is such controversy that I can't tell the difference between truth and fiction, but Edward de Vere is a prime candidate who has recently sparked my interest, and your comment confirms the popularity of his candidacy, even presenting a biographical reading that seems to align with events from his life! I need to look into this more, and I'm so pleased to read your thoughts here.
this was very good...Please help me with this question. '' Rewrite the first line of the poem ,indicating the stressed and unstressed syllables of iambic pentameter, Use the symbol/to indicate the stressed syllables and the symbol to indicate the unstressed syllables.
When you find the answers please let me know too ;)
/To me, /fair friend, /you nev-/er can /be old,/
This is the answer, with the stress falling on the second syllable of each pair of words between slashes: (i.e. "to ME / fair FRIEND / you NEV-/er CAN / be OLD."
You skipped a quatrain. haha
Was that on purpose?
Hmm... I can't remember. Might've been because my interpretation didn't rest much on those lines? Do you think it's worth mentioning the missed quatrain?
Was shakespear gay?
From my understanding, we don't know...