The Speaker proclaims his jealousy of those that are “rich in hope” (line 5) and “with friends possess'd” (line 6), once again referring to his hopelessness and low social status. Both Paglia and Frank agree that the first octave is about the Speaker’s current depression caused by his social ostracism in his outcast state” (line 2) and personal misfortune that has “curse my fate” (line 4). The heaping of stress, the harsh reversal, the rush to a vivid stress - all enforce the angry anti-religious troubled cry." Ramsey breaks down this line very specifically and implies that Shakespeare was incredibly meticulous and deliberate when writing each line to convey his tone and sentiment.Ĭamille Paglia states that there is nothing in the poem that would provide a clue as to whether the poem is directed towards a man or a woman, but assumes, as many do, that Sonnet 29 was written about the young man.
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He specifically points out stressed syllables, "troub-," "deaf," and "heav'n", saying they are "jarringly close together" and that "the 'heav'n with' is probably the most violent example in the sonnets of a trochee without a preceding verse-pause. In his book The Fickle Glass: A Study of Shakespeare's Sonnets, Paul Ramsey points out the line three specifically as "one of the most perturbed lines in our language". The biggest question seems to surround whether this rhyme decision significantly deviates from the Shakespearean sonnet format or if it was simply the poet's choice. Philip McGuire states in his article that some refer to this as a "serious technical blemish", while others maintain that "the double use of 'state' as a rhyme may be justified, in order to bring out the stark contrast between the Speaker's apparently outcast state and the state of joy described in the third quatrain". This whole issue of the duplicated B-rhyme is addressed in other sources as well. The first “state” referring the Speaker’s condition (line 2), the second to his mindset (line 10), and the third to “state” of a monarch or kingdom (line 14). As Frank explains in his article Shakespeare repeats the word “state” three times throughout the poem with each being a reference to something different.
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However, Shakespeare did not only create a pattern of line rhymes. McRae says that the duplication of the B-rhyme redirects the reader’s attention to the lines, and this “poem within a poem” pulls the piece back together in a way that contrasts its original pulling apart. McRae notes that this break from the traditional style of sonnet writing creates a feeling of the sonnet being “pulled apart.” The second unique characteristic is the repetition of the B-rhyme in lines 2 and 4 (“state” and “fate”) in the F-rhyme in lines 10 and 12 (“state” and “gate”). McRae points out, however, that the Speaker in this sonnet fails to produce a solution possibly because his overwhelming lack of self-worth prevents him from ever being able to state an actual argument, and instead uses his conclusion to contrast the negative feelings stated in the previous octave.
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Traditionally, the first eight lines of a sonnet produce a problem (a “when” statement”) that is then resolved in the last six lines (a “then” statement). The first unique characteristic is the lack of a “when/then” pattern. In his literary criticism of Stephen Booth’s analysis of the work, Murdo William McRae explains two characteristics of the internal structure of Sonnet 29 that Booth failed to mention that make the work distinctly unique from any of Shakespeare’s other sonnets. As noted by Bernhard Frank, Sonnet 29 includes two distinct sections with the Speaker explaining his current depressed state of mind in the first octave and then conjuring what appears to be a happier image in the last sestet It is composed of three rhyming quatrains with a rhyming couplet at the end and follows the traditional English rhyme scheme of ABAB CDCD EFEF GG. The sonnet contains fourteen lines and is written in iambic pentameter, meaning that each of the fourteen lines contains ten syllables that alternate between unstressed and stressed. Sonnet 29 follows the same basic structure as Shakespeare's other sonnets.