Free Essay: Analysis of Sonnet 64 :: Sonnet essays

Analysis of Sonnet 64   When I have seen by Times ferine hand defacd The rich proud cost of outworn buried age When some era lofty towers I see down razd, And brass eternal slave to pernicious rage When I have seen the hungry ocean gain Advantage on the kingdom of the shore, And the firm soil win of the watery main, Increasing submit with loss and loss with store When I have seen such interchange of state, Or state itself confounded to decay, Ruin hath tought me thus to ruminate- That Time will scrape and take my love away. This thought is as a death, which cannot choose But weep to have that which it fears to lose.       As A. Kent Hieatt did a great job in citing legitimate similarities in Sonnets to Spencers Ruines of capital of Italy by Bellay, I was surprised enough not to dfind any parallels on sonnet 64 to that of Ruines of capital of Italy. This sonnet delivers, moreso, the theme of Rome succumbing to time rather than textual correlations. I will provide a quatrain by quatrain explicaton that cites certain allusions to Spencers text. In the first quatrain, time has destroyed Rome, the buried age, having lived too keen-sighted (outworn) as a prosperous civilization. The lofty towers being razd echoes Rome being Heapt hils on hils, to scale the starrie sky the first hils in Spencer refers to the papistic civilization and the sensual buildings, whereas the latter hils refers to the mountains on which Rome was built. Thus, being razd are all of the monuments of Rome that are subject to mutability. Ambiguity in the second quatrain allows for two readings following the Roman theme. First, the hungry ocean is the sea itself which gains on Rome, the kingdom of the shore, but if the ocean is rising against Rome, it is incongruous to say that the firm soil defeats the watery main. A more appropriate alternate reading still refers to Rome as the kingdom of the shore, but the hungry ocean refers to other civilizations that ha ve tried to conquer Rome yet failed. 5-7 When I have seen usurping nations hostily advance towards Rome, and then steadfast Rome defeat the opposing navy,. This latter reading more supports line 8, in which Rome increases its wealth through the gains of (Romes) conquests thus, with loss, and yet at the same time increases its loss with store, (that is, times store of time).