Sonnet 39: O, How Thy Worth with Manners May I Sing
Sonnet 39: O, How Thy Worth with Manners May I Sing - form Summary
A Sonnet of Divided Self
This poem is a Shakespearean sonnet that uses the sonnet’s tight structure to stage a rhetorical argument: the speaker claims he cannot praise the beloved without dividing himself, so he imagines a formal separation that allows proper praise. The poem frames absence as both torment and opportunity, arguing that distance sharpens affection and lets the speaker celebrate the beloved from afar. The concluding couplet resolves the conceit by uniting praise and presence.
Read Complete AnalysesO, how thy worth with manners may I sing, When thou art all the better part of me? What can mine own praise to mine own self bring? And what is’t but mine own when I praise thee? Even for this let us divided live, And our dear love lose name of single one, That by this separation I may give That due to thee which thou deserv’st alone. O, absence what a torment wouldst thou prove, Were it not thy sour leisure gave sweet leave To entertain the time with thoughts of love, Which time and thoughts so sweetly doth deceive, And that thou teachest how to make one twain By praising him here who doth hence remain!
Feel free to be first to leave comment.