preview

Sonnet 6 Analysis

Decent Essays

Aj Giosa Mr. Foley Sonnet 6 Explication 26 November 2017 Sonnet 6 is notable for the ingenious multiplying of conceits and especially for the concluding pun on a legal will in the final couplet: "Be not self-willed, for thou art much too fair / To be death's conquest and make worms thine heir." Here, as earlier in the sonnet, the poet juxtaposes the themes of narcissism and death, as well as procreation. "Self-willed" echoes line 4's "self-killed," and the worms that destroy the young man's dead body will be his only heirs should he die without begetting a child which shows the theme of death. The whole sonnet is about trying to persuade the man to have a baby hence the theme if procreation. And lastly, the man is being selfish in wanting to die without passing on his beauty. The sonnet continues from sonnet 5 and is telling a young man to not let his wintery old age destroy his summer beauty. Meaning he should have children to pass down his good genes before he passes away along with his beauty. In the middle of the sonnet where the volta begins at line 6, talking about giving your body to a woman will make her happy and she will repay you with a baby. Now the real turn is having a baby or “thyself breed another thee” which is line 7. In the beginning of the poem having a child was about passing on his beauty rather than being happy. The new point is to make a new you so you keep living and conquer death. On to the end of the sonnet at line 11,which emphasizes the new

Get Access