sonnet 35 by edmund spensor?

Question

summary

Answer 1

It's "Spenser". Next time, say "please".

Thank you.

Answer 2

My paraphrase below will help you get the gist of it:

SONNET XXXV.
MY eager eyes due to greedy yearning,
still to strive to look at the thing that causes them pain:
nothing can satisfy them nor suffice,
but having, this sight, and there is no complaint.
But if they lack this object of desire they cannot sustain live,
and by having it they look at it the more:
in amazement like vainglorious Narcissus did
whose eyes sought more: and so plenty makes one poor.
Yet are my eyes are so filled with much
of that pretty sight, that nothing else they turn to,
but hate the things which they like to see earlier,
and cannot more endure to look at them .
All this world's glory seems vain to me,
and all the worldly shows are just shadows staged for her.

* Of course, he is paying glowing tribute to the pretty lady. It is as if he has encountered a beauty like no other.


Read this also to understand the context better:

SPENSER, EDMUND (c. 1552—1599), English poet, author of the Faery Queen, was born in London about the year 1552. The received date of his birth rests on a passage in sonnet lx. of the A moretti. He speaks there of having lived forty-one years; the Atnoretti was published in 1595, and described on the titlepage as “written not long since “; this would make the ye~r of his birth 1552 or 1553. We know from the Prot/zalamion that London was his birthplace. This at least seems the most natural interpretation of the words— “‘Merry London, my most kindly nurse."

The Age of Spenser in English literature refers to the latter half of the sixteenth century, a period that coincided with the reign of the last Tudor monarch Queen Elizabeth I, who brilliantly bound the destiny of England to the cause of her own success. Thus, a primary object of sixteenth-century English Renaissance writers—whose livelihood depended heavily upon literary patronage and the Court's favor—was the creation of a national literature befitting England's emerging status as a formidable world power and the implicit, and often explicit, celebration of the Queen herself. Considered the golden age of English history, Elizabeth's reign was an era of increased religious tolerance and relative peace until the war with Spain and the defeat of the Spanish Armada in 1588. During Elizabeth's tenure treasury coffers were replenished, shipping, trade, and commerce proliferated, and new roads were built that helped unify and connect the English population. Parliament also passed many reform laws touching currency, aid to the poor, agriculture, and industry. It was only in the last decade of Elizabeth's reign that England's fortunes soured and the country was again vexed by debt and increased internal strife. Yet her rule was primarily a time of peace, national unity, and affluence. This prosperity, coupled with Elizabeth's fervent patronage of the arts, nurtured the English Renaissance which peaked during her era. Virtually all fields flourished, including music, architecture, and painting, but especially literature, where important works appeared in the genres of drama, poetry, and prose. The latter included ecclesiastical tracts such as Richard Hooker's Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity (1593-97), literary criticism including Sir Philip Sidney's seminal treatise The Defence of Poesie (1595), and travel narratives by Sir Walter Raleigh, Richard Hakluyt, and others. Hakluyt's Principal Navigations, Traffics, Voyages and Discoveries of the English Nation (1589) both reflected and encouraged the English fascination with geography, exploration, and empire building.

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