A Formalistic Approach
Reading of “Sonnet 29”
By William Shakespeare
Sonnet 29
By William Shakespeare
A sonnet is a lyric poetry, which consists of 14 iambic pentameter lines that are arranged in two waves of thought. Sonnet 29 is a Shakespearean sonnet wherein it follows a pattern of three quatrains and a couplet and has a rhyme scheme of ababcdcdefefgg. It is written in a meter called iambic pentameter because each sonnet line consists of ten syllables and these syllables are divided into five pairs called iambs. An iamb is a metrical unit consisting of an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable.
The sonnet is divided into two parts. The first part is the first eight lines or the first two quatrains wherein an argument was formed. In this part, the speaker feels so depressed and he was all alone by himself. The other part of the sonnet is the last quatrain and the couplet or the lines 9-14. This is the part wherein the argument was resolved.
The first four lines tell how the poet or speaker is really feeling, great sadness. After reading these lines, I felt that he has a sense of loneliness and alienation. He is alone, because everyone else thinks badly of him. It also tells us that the poet, who is very depressed, is crying out for help to others, but he is such an outcast that even God and the angels of heaven are not listening to his cries. These cries were useless because no one is hearing his cries.
The next quatrain starts with a line showing that the speaker wishes to be like somebody else with more prospects in life and someone who had more hope. He wishes to be like someone more attractive, and someone who is surrounded with more friends. He also wants to be someone with greater artistic skills and opportunities. He then reveals that he is least satisfied in the things he enjoys most. I think that in this quatrain, he is somehow envious of other men’s skills and possessions and everything that they have. These...