Perhaps the first accusation the puzzled and frustrated novice may level at Shakespeare, and poetry in general, is that the poet’s way of speaking is affected, obscure, and superfluous. Indeed, in a culture of compartmentalized communication and efficient informational exchange, the language of the poets seems thoroughly foreign (I find it telling that as I peruse the online Folger edition of the Sonnets, Google wants to know if I would like the page auto-translated from French). It would understandably be uncomfortable for a people used to emoting with emojis instead of emotions to attempt to comprehend some of the deepest-feeling English ever written. And yet, these contemporary critics have a point: there is something strange about the way poets speak. While in Shakespeare’s case, Sixteenth-Century diction may have a role to play in this issue, the fact remains that poets’ lines simply do not read like any other form of written or spoken language. No doubt, scholars have spilled oceans of ink on what defines “poetry,” but I will be content here simply to note that the expression of poets is peculiar, in that the precise word choice and word placement of a poet seems to be more delicate and more significant; poets’ words simply work harder.
In the case of Shakespeare, this peculiar expression often takes on a recognizable pattern of syllables and stresses, which we now call meter and foot. On this point, the dissatisfaction of the erudite often joins the complaints of beginners. A superfluous form, it seems, could not in any conceivable way aid expression, and if anything, limits it. My purpose here is to show through a brief analysis of Shakespeare’s Sonnet Twelve, that the Bard’s language is in fact very expressive, and that the form he employs in the sonnet is crucial to his poetic project. I believe that when one reads the sonnet attentively, they will make the realization that the form is neither constrictive nor superfluous. Rather, it provides the proper setting, the canvas on which Shakespeare paints a masterpiece.
Sonnet Twelve depicts the meditations of an aging speaker on death and decay, culminating in the speaker’s injunction to a young companion to have children, or if read another way, to die well. A close examination of the rhythm and stresses in this poem affirms that not one syllable is out of place— if one pays attention to what the syllables are up to at any given time.
Shakespeare’s interpretation of the sonnet involves fourteen lines divided into three quatrains and a couplet— stanzas, or groups of lines, composed of four and two lines respectively. In the poem, these sections can be identified by the rhyme scheme preserved in each stanza, which alternates in the quatrains and repeats in the couplet. For example, the first stanza’s lines end with the words, “time (...) night (...) prime (...) white,” (lines 1-4) and the couplet simply ends, “defense (...) hence,” (lines 13-14). This structure proves to be quite flexible; one could conceivably include three separate perspectives on a subject in each of the three quatrains, or wait until the final couplet to turn the first twelve lines on their head. In Sonnet Twelve, he employs such a strategy, emphasizing the inevitability of death for the three quatrains, before offering a solution in the couplet.
Shakespeare’s preferred line structure is called iambic pentameter. This structure denotes a string of five iambic feet, an iamb being an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed one. A consistent scheme like this provides stability and rhythm, and could be conceived as a kind of time signature within which Shakespeare intends to operate. Note, for example, the auditory consistency of the first line, created by the even distribution of stressed syllables (italicized and emboldened): “When I do count the clock that tells the time,” (line 1). The effect of this scheme is like that of a metronome, which in establishing a lyrical baseline, supports the bare words of a poem with structure in the way a time signature may support a set of musical notes.
Shakespeare does not, however, adhere dogmatically to his baseline of iambs; they instead constitute a kind of regularity which allows him to employ other syllabic feet as expressive flourishes. These can include trochees, made up of a stressed syllable followed by an unstressed syllable, spondees, two stressed syllables, or even dactyls, a stressed syllable followed by two unstressed syllables. Because the consistency of iambic pentameter is expected, the inclusion of these different feet becomes ubiquitous, giving Shakespeare another tool to emphasize and develop the meaning of his words.
This particular artifice is on display throughout Sonnet 12. Even the opening line, a perfect example of iambic pentameter, conveys significance by its very regularity. Again, “When I do count the clock that tells the time,” (line 1) proceeds in metronomic fashion, setting the rhythm, but also calling attention to the significance of the words themselves. The speaker in this poem is transfixed by the timepiece, which organizes time into regular intervals; Shakespeare’s monosyllabic iambs perfectly imitate this proverbial ticking of the clock.
On the other hand, one does not have to travel far to find Shakespeare’s first flourish of the poem. The second line reads, “And see the brave day sunk in hideous night” (line 2). The attentive ear will notice a slight divergence from the iambic rhythm in the third foot. After the stressed syllable “brave,” one expects another iamb, but they receive the opposite: a trochee (“day sunk”). This insertion has the effect of creating a kind of peak of two stressed syllables in the middle of the line, in “brave day,” followed by a valley of two unstressed ones, in “sunk in.” One does not have to think very deeply to glean significance from this; the day epitomizes youth and fullness, but it is sinking into the night of old age. The rise and fall of the line’s cadence underscores this sentiment.
One finds similar use of trochees in lines five and eight. Line five reads, “when lofty trees I see barren of leaves” (line 5). The valley created here by the trochee in the fourth foot (“barren”) is more naturally emphasized than the peak, as the stresses before it are not particularly strong. This too follows the sentiment of the poem, as the primary observation the line makes is of the trees’ regrettable barrenness, and its reminiscence of old age. As the leaves drop, so does the stress, accentuating the feeling of departure. Nearly the same device occurs in line eight, the last line of the same stanza: “Borne on the bier with white and bristly beard,” (line 8). The trochee in line eight instead appears on the first foot of the line, again naturally emphasizing the valley more than the peak. Here, as before, it corresponds with both the placement and sentiment of the line’s controlling action: the bearing of Summer’s green on the bier.
Conversely, the final line of the poem, line fourteen, contains a trochee which naturally accentuates the peak instead of the valley. The line, “Save breed, to brave him when he takes thee hence,” (line 14). takes advantage of the stressed verb “brave” in the second iambic foot, and the trochee “him when” to give the result of whatever Shakespeare means by “breed” pride of place in the poem’s final injunction.
The climax and recession denoted by trochees is not Shakespeare’s only trick in this poem, however. Lines three, thirteen, and fourteen also employ spondees, using groups of stressed syllables to further express Shakespeare’s meaning. Line three’s stress occurs on the last foot: “When I behold the violet past prime” (line 3). The pair of stressed syllables “past prime” joins with the stressed syllable of the previous iamb “-let” to create a powerful three-syllable emphasis at the end of the line. This formulation calls attention to the most important part of the violet the poem’s speaker is beholding: that it is past its prime. It is almost as if Shakespeare is underlining these final words for the reader, bidding his audience to pay closer attention to time’s destructive power. This attitude appears even more strongly in one last notable metric deviation of the sonnet, a spondee in the middle of line thirteen. It reads “And nothing ‘gainst Time’s Scythe can make defense” (line 13). As the ostensible antagonist of the poem, it is natural that Time’s Scythe would be given special attention when he finally makes his appearance.
Without the expectation of regularity determined by the form, the mere association of stressed or unstressed syllables would not draw nearly as much attention as it does in this masterwork of Shakepeare’s. Clearly, iambic pentameter is one of the Bard’s primary means of poetic expression; if it were disregarded, his verse would lose an entire dimension of meaning. This is not to say that all poets must adopt a rigid form; the richness of language allows for many kinds of verse, employing many different aspects of speech. But it is to say that one cannot write off Shakespeare’s chosen form as constrictive, or affected; one may just as well critique the artist for limiting himself to his paintbrush, or the musician for limiting himself to his instrument.
Jonathan M. Wright is an incoming PhD student at the University of St. Andrews School of Divinity, and the prose editor of Reveille Journal. His essays can be found in Antigone Journal, Magnus Articles, and Colloquy Journal.