From the Amoretti - Edmund Spenser

 

    Edmund Spenser:-

Edmund Spenser was born in 1552 and died in 1599. He was an English poet who grew up in London. He is probably best known for his work The Faerie Queen. He was a poet who published his first volume of poems in 1579. He wrote the Amoretti sonnets to woo his future wife, Elizabeth, and there is some question as to exactly how many Amoretti sonnets he wrote. It is safe to say, however, that he wrote between 89 and 100.

The Story Behind the Sonnets:-

The word 'Amoretti' means 'little love poems.' The Amoretti sonnets were written to Elizabeth Boyle, Spenser's second wife, during their dating. Because the sonnets were all written to one woman, this was unusual.

Analysis:-

One day I wrote her name is a sonnet by Edmund Spenser.

The poet starts with a romantic scene. He and her beloved are at the strand. The speaker writes her name upon the strand but the wave comes and washes that away. But the poet again writes now with second hand. But again wave washes it.

After seeing this speaker's beloved tells him that he works in vain to immortalize her. She points out that one day she will die, her body will fall to decay as all living things must in that moment, she says her name will be lost, wiped out as the wave erases the letters in the sand.

But the poet knows how to make her name immortal. He says that other things may die and rot, but she will live by fame. He will make her name immortal by writing her poems, he will immortalize her so that long after her death, even the heavens will remember her glorious name.

In a few lines, the poet talks about the efforts that he took to mortalize the name of his beloved. One fine day the poet started writing his beloved’s name upon the strand but waves became his enemy as it washed away his beloved name.Still, after the first failure he did not give up and again tried to write her name but again the time came and washed it away. This pain has very well expressed in line by the poet which is......

 

"But come the tide , and

Made my pains his prey,"

 In the next stanza in the next lines the poet talks about a fort to the mortal name of his beloved his beloved may be in watching him from somewhere and expresses her sorrow for the failure of her love.

 

                The poet then expresses his feelings because he is scared now of the way nature wiped out his beloved’s ne his fear is that his name also can be wiped out likewise.

 

Other details:-

It would be good to take a look at the structure of the Petrarchan sonnet. Petrarchan sonnets have 14 lines and two parts. The first part is called the octave, and its rhyme scheme is abba abba. The second section has six lines and is called a sestet. The rhyme scheme in the sestet is flexible to a point. Two or three rhyme patterns may be arranged in different ways. But the last two lines may never be a couplet. This differs from the Shakespearean sonnet which always ends in a couplet.

 

In spite of the strict Petrarchan form, however, Spenser seems to have created his own blend between the two types of sonnets.