Sonnet 35: No More Be Grieved at That Which Thou Hast Done
Sonnet 35: No More Be Grieved at That Which Thou Hast Done - form Summary
Volta Frames the Moral Turn
This is a Shakespearean sonnet in three quatrains and a final couplet. The opening quatrains list blemishes and universal fault, while a structural turn (volta) at line nine shifts into the speaker's personal admission of complicity in excusing the beloved. The tight rhyme scheme and the volta concentrate the poem's tension between judgment and self-accusation. The closing couplet delivers a compressed, morally charged resolution to that conflict.
Read Complete AnalysesNo more be grieved at that which thou hast done. Roses have thorns, and silver fountains mud, Clouds and eclipses stain both moon and sun, And loathsome canker lives in sweetest bud. All men make faults, and even I in this, Authorizing thy trespass with compare, Myself corrupting, salving thy amiss, Excusing thy sins more than thy sins are. For to thy sensual fault I bring in sense Thy adverse party is thy advocate And ‘gainst my self a lawful plea commence. Such civil war is in my love and hate That I an accessary needs must be To that sweet thief which sourly robs from me.
Feel free to be first to leave comment.