Shakespeare Sonnet One

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FROM fairest creatures we desire increase,
That thereby beauty's rose might never die,
But as the riper should by time decease,
His tender heir might bear his memory:
But thou, contracted to thine own bright eyes,
Feed'st thy light'st flame with self-substantial fuel,
Making a famine where abundance lies,
Thyself thy foe, to thy sweet self too cruel.
Thou that art now the world's fresh ornament
And only herald to the gaudy spring,
Within thine own bud buriest thy content
And, tender churl, makest waste in niggarding.
Pity the world, or else this glutton be,
To eat the world's due, by the grave and thee.

William Shakespeare's "Sonnet One" is written using his classic variations of the iambic parameter as well as a medley of poetic devices. He focuses on the importance of reproduction of one's self and reasons why.

The iambic parameter is a fixed alternating rhythm of ten syllables, stressed and unstressed, per line. Shakespeare deviated from the traditional usage of the iambus and would sometimes use more or less then ten syllables for emphasis. Shakespeare also used alliteration, repetition and rhyme scheme in "Sonnet One."

"Feed'st thy lightest flame with substantial fuel"

The idea behind alliteration is just to grasp your attention further to what the author is really saying. Here, Shakespeare redundantly uses the consonants "st" and "l."

"Thyself thy foe, to thy sweet self too cruel."

Shakespeare uses repetition of the words "thy" and "self" to stress the prominence of someone's beauty. The rhyme scheme used in this sonnet is using the pentameter and meaning of the words more so then the sound. For example:

"From fairest creaturs we desire increase,
That thereby beauty's rose might never die,

But as the riper should by time decease,
His tender heir might bear his memory"

The rhyme scheme above seems to be A-B-A-D, but is really A-B-A-B. "Die" and "memory" are the "rhyme" as well as an oxymoron as memory is non-existent after death. Another oxymoron in this sonnet is "Making a famine where abundance lies", meaning that there can be so much more of their beauty but is overpowered by conceitedness like a sickness.

In the first quatrain, Shakespeare presents his argument on how men and women should reproduce so their given beauty from nature can carry on beyond them. In the second, Shakespeare speaks on how one might become enveloped in themselves and has no care for an heir to their beauty to, like said in the first quatrain, share theirs with the rest. The emphasis of his belief in this is shown in the first line as he says: "But the riper should by time decease" challenging whoever doesn't. In the third quatrain, it is then discussed again how the person is only devastating themselves by not sharing the unique gifts from God and opportunity that they were given. Shakespeare describes this to be selfish and how the person is ultimately wasting themselves. The rhyming couplet then concludes that one should not be selfish and consider multiplying themselves as an order from nature or their beauty will be purposelessly lost forever when they decease.

The construction of a sonnet is like the structure of an essay, especially by Shakespeare. Before I could fully understand the meaning behind this poem, I had to first comprehend the iambic pentameter, alliteration, the difference of repetition of consonants and assonants Shakespeare's unique use of rhyme scheme, and the parts of a sonnet. In "Sonnet One", Shakespeare stresses how reproduction is crucial to carry on one's soul and beauty beyond their time and so on or its lost and these gifts become impractical.