Sonnet 59: If There Be Nothing New, but That Which Is
Sonnet 59: If There Be Nothing New, but That Which Is - meaning Summary
Originality and Historical Echo
Shakespeare’s Sonnet 59 wrestles with originality and admiration. The speaker doubts that anything truly new exists and wishes to find the beloved’s image in an old book to judge whether modern beauty improves or repeats the past. Frustrated, he imagines earlier poets praising lesser subjects, which heightens his sense that current praise may be inadequate or derivative. The poem explores how memory, tradition, and comparison shape our sense of novelty and worth.
Read Complete AnalysesIf there be nothing new, but that which is Hath been before, how are our brains beguiled, Which, labouring for invention bear amis The second burthen of a former child! O, that record could with a backward look, Even of five hundred courses of the sun, Show me your image in some antique book, Since mind at first in character was done. That I might see what the old world could say To this composèd wonder of your frame; Whether we are mended, or whe’er better they, Or whether revolution be the same. O, sure I am the wits of former days To subjects worse have given admiring praise.
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