Analysis of Shakespeare's Rememberance

Sonnet XXX

When to the sessions of sweet silent thought
I summon up remembrance of things past,
I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought,
And with old woes new wail my dear time's waste:
Then can I drown an eye, unused to flow,
For precious friends hid in death's dateless night,
And weep afresh love's long since cancelled woe,
And moan the expense of many a vanished sight:
Then can I grieve at grievances foregone,
And heavily from woe to woe tell o'er
The sad account of fore-bemoaned moan,
Which I new pay as if not paid before.
   But if the while I think on thee, dear friend,
   All losses are restor'd and sorrows end.

Remembrance, a sonnet by the great sonneteer Shakespeare. He was a great sonneteer who gave a new form, a new taste to the sonnet. The theme of Shakespearean sonnets is mostly loved but there are some other themes also which he handles with accuracy and aptness. The sonnet remembrance shows that the poet in a sad and melancholic mood who is brooding for his lost and dead friends.

The poet is recalling all the memories from the past. He is thinking about the happy days when he used to be with his friends. He is lamenting for a number of things that he was unable to get from his life. With the passage of time, new regrets have crept in the poet’s life. Poet used to weep on his past sorrows and new regrets but time has matured him and now, he doesn’t weep at them, he only laments and feels sad for his activities. The poet is shown to be lamenting and feeling sorry for his friends who are no more in this world. He once again wants to weep at their death so as to tribute them and he wants once again he must cry for them as if he had not cried at their time of the death. All the sorrows, which he had bewailed, he wants to lament once again for his dead friends. After lamenting and crying for his long-dead friends he feels enthusiastic and rejuvenated. The friends who are lost now make the poet sad but after lamenting at them he feels happy and satisfied. The reversal of mood is witnessed in the last couplet of the sonnet.

The theme of death and immortality has been portrayed here. Fair Youth, the person to whom the sonnets of Shakespeare were dedicated is an amalgamation of all the qualities which Shakespeare’s lost friends had that is why the mere presence of fair youth makes Shakespeare happy as he sees a blend of qualities of lost friends in Fair Youth. The poet is shown to be nostalgic throughout the sonnet. Poet, in the beginning, suffers from an acute sense of loneliness. Death is personified in the sonnet. ‘Woe to woe’ shows repetition. The feelings of the poet towards his friends are intense and that is why he is lamenting for their death after so many years. Diction is simple, colloquial. The rhyme scheme followed is abab cdcd efef gg. Alliteration and onomatopoeia are also seen.

The poet had started the sonnet on a pessimistic note and the end of the sonnet witnesses optimistic note. Thus, we can say, the purpose of Shakespearean sonnets served. The poet is victorious as well as successful in grasping the sympathy of readers.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

© Manjari Shukla

(Original)Copyright Protected

My Notes made during Graduation in Patna Women's college (2006-2009)