A Study Guide for William Shakespeare's "Sonnet 30"

By Gale and Cengage

A Study Guide for William Shakespeare's "Sonnet 30," excerpted from Gale's acclaimed Poetry for Students. This concise study guide includes plot summary; character analysis; author biography; study questions; historical context; suggestions for further reading; and much more. For any literature project, trust Poetry for Students for all of your research needs.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Cengage Learning - Gale
• Release date: Aug 19, 2016
• ISBN: 9781535833752

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Sonnet 30

William Shakespeare

1609

Introduction

In Palladis Tamia: Wit’s Treasury (1598), Francis Mere writes that a man named William Shakespeare was known for his sugared sonnets among his private friends. Though the melancholy tone of most of Sonnet 30 (first published in 1609) can hardly be characterized as sweet, the final couplet does have a saccharine quality that many of Shakespeare’s critics have found distasteful. After the speaker has been overwhelmed with sadness for twelve lines, can he really solve all of his problems and find happiness in a couplet’s time? Perhaps his friend is indeed his savior, possessed with the wealth, power, or influence to replace the speaker’s mysterious losses (line 14). But the speaker’s quick and easy change of heart in the last two lines may be a sign that his grief is not as deep as it seems. Indeed, the sonnet’s difficult phrasings, heavy alliteration, and deliberate drag of repeated words lend a theatrical tone to his moans and sighs; the reader is left wondering if the speaker’s eye is, in fact, unused to flow (line