Sonnet 1 - Form and Structure

Form and Structure

Sonnet 1 has the traditional characteristics of a Shakespearean sonnet—three quatrains and a couplet written in iambic pentameter with an ABAB CDCD EFEF GG rhyme scheme. Many of Shakespeare's sonnets are based on the two-part structure of the Italian Petrarchan Sonnet. In this type of sonnet "the last eight lines are logically or metaphorically set against the last six an octave-generalization will be followed by a particular sestet-application, an octave question will be followed by a sestet answer or at least a quatrain answer before the summarizing couplet". Shakespeare does employ this type of sonnet but also mixes it with a bit of his own inventiveness. It is through the "character of the speaker, the only voice that Shakespeare allows us to hear" the inventiveness of his story.

In lines one through four of this sonnet, Shakespeare writes about increasing and references memory. Here, Shakespeare chooses to rhyme "increase" and "decease", "die" and "memory" and then proceeds to use "eyes" and "lies", "fuel" and "cruel" as rhymes in the second quatrain (lines five through eight). In lines five through twelve, Shakespeare shifts to famine and waste. At the beginning of the second quatrain, Carl Atkins explains the inventiveness of Shakespeare, when the sonnet shifts from its rhythm and iambic pentameter to a more personal level: "We note Shakespeare's consummate ability to mimic colloquial speech so that the sonnet sounds personal and conversational, rather than sententious. Rhythm has an important role here. Thus, we have the triple emphasis produced by the final spondee of line 5, so effective after the regular iambic pentameter of all that precedes it. This is then followed by the flowing trochee-iamb that begins the next line, a combination that will be repeated frequently".

In the third quatrain, the key rhyming words given by the speaker are: "ornament" and "content", and "spring" and "niggarding"; additional visuals are presented in this quatrain, such as "fresh", "herald", "bud", "burial", and the oxymoron "tender churl". Other words and themes the speaker uses are explained by Helen Vendler: "The concepts – because Shakespeare's mind works by contrastive taxonomy – tend to be summoned in pairs: increase and decrease, ripening and dying; beauty and immortality versus memory and inheritance; expansion and contraction; inner spirit (eyes) and outward show (bud); self-consumption and dispersal, famine and abundance". Shakespeare uses these words to make "an aesthetic investment in profusion". The meaning found in these lines and words shows how the young man's refusal to procreate is a refusal of his flesh, a wasting of it.

Lastly, Shakespeare finishes the sonnet in the rhyme scheme one would expect from similar sonnets: the couplet has two consecutively rhyming lines in iambic pentameter. Each line contains ten syllables, and the second line is composed only of one-syllable words. These ten syllables add up to one tenth of the number of syllables in the entire poem. Some scholars attribute the monosyllable closing line of the poem as a tribute to 16th century poet, George Gascoigne. Gascoigne is quoted as saying, "The more monosyllables that you use, the truer Englishman you shall seemed, and the less you shall smell of the Inkhorn".

It is in this final quatrain and the concluding couplet we see one final change. The couplet of the poem describes the seemingly selfish nature of the beloved (Shakespeare chooses to rhyme "be" and "thee" here). By making the choice to not procreate, Shakespeare describes how the beloved is denying what the world deserves (his bloodline). Instead of ending the sonnet on a positive note or feeling while alternating between dark and bright tones, the tone of the couplet is negative since the sonnet is overshadowed by the themes of blame, self-interest, and famine in both quatrains two and three.