Sonnet 75?

Question

Paraphrase for Sonnet 75 by Edmund Spenser.

Answer 1

One day, I wrote her name on the sand of the seashore, but the waves washed her name away. Then I wrote it again but it was gone because the tide came. Then she said, you are only trying in vain. why are you still writing my name when you know that i will be forgotten after my death. No, your wrong, I said. your name and our love for each other will live on for all of eternity in my poetry.

* A closer look :

During the Elizabethan age, love sonnets traditionally told the story of men in love with unattainable women. However, Spenser's sonnets from his sonnet sequence "Amoretti" defy the general pessimism and give an optimistic look at love. In fact, his "Sonnet 75" shows such optimism that his persona, after a realization in the poem, claims that his love will be immortal through verse. "Sonnet 75" stands as a successful sonnet because it presents an optimistic view on love through graphic imagery and a realistic story. Spencer takes the success of the work a step further because he uses form, rhyme, personification, and alliteration to mirror the imagery and story of his Elizabethan sonnet. Poetry blows.

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Answer 2

Sonnet 75 Edmund Spenser

Answer 3

Edmund Spenser - Sonnet 75

One day I wrote her name upon the strand,
But came the waves and washed it away:
Again I wrote it with a second hand,
But came the tide, and made my pains his prey.
Vain man, said she, that doest in vain assay
A mortal thing so to immortalize,
For I myself shall like to this decay,
And eek my name be wiped out likewise.
Not so (quoth I), let baser things devise
To die in dust, but you shall live by fame:
My verse your virtues rare shall eternize,
And in the heavens write your glorious name.
Where whenas Death shall all the world subdue,
Out love shall live, and later life renew.


It’s no fun to answer when you don’t even bother to write a question … I think your Yahoo Answerers will feel less like tools if you put a little human touch into your request.

Anyway, this is a love poem … with a fairly common theme of “you’ll live forever in my verse.”

It’s nice. In the first stanza, the poet is writing his love’s name in the sand but twice, the waves come and erase it.

The woman shows up and laughs, telling him that it’s useless to try to “immortalize” a human. She’ll die and decay – she’ll be wiped away by death just like her name is swept away from the sand. (it’s cool to see the WOMAN saying this, because in the usual Renaissance tradition, the man is constantly saying that to the woman: “You’re beautiful NOW, but someday you’ll be old and ugly and dead and rotting.”)

In the last six lines (the sestet), the poet says: NO! I _will_ make you immortal in my poetry!

In the couplet, he finishes by saying: “Sure, Death will conquer the entire world; but our LOVE will live on in my poems and will even help to RENEW future loves (when they read this poetry).”

Again, what’s cool about this poem is that it’s a kind of twist on the usual theme where the poet is kind of hostilely telling the Lady: “You should have sex with me NOW because soon you’ll be old and ugly and nobody will want to have sex with you – so if you have sex now, you could (a) have a baby and pass your beauty on to the future, or (b) become immortal in my poems.” In this poem (kinda) it’s the woman who raises the “carpe diem” argument – and the man who generously sweeps it away.

Answer 4

Hope this helps!