GÖ KÇE AKDAŞ 1810103058

DAY CLASS

ANALYSIS OF THE POEM “THE SOVEREIGN BEAUTY WHICH I DO ADMIRE”

A poem is a product of writing that expresses intense feelings, emotions, experiences,

ideas by using literary techniques. Understanding a poem is harder than understanding prose,
so there are some rules of understanding a poem. To analyze a poem correctly, we have four
steps. First, identifying the sentences, second, locating the sub-sentences, third indicating the
meanings of each sentence and sub-sentences, fourth is indicating figures of speech.

The poem includes fourteen lines because it is a sonnet. This poem is made up of two
sentences. A sentence is a group of words that starts with a capital letter and ends with a
sentence terminator. A sentence has a complete meaning, and sentence terminators create
complete meaning. Sentence terminators are a full stop, a question mark, and an exclamation
mark. The first eight lines make up the first sentence as it is seen below.

“ The sovereign beauty which I do admire,

Witness the world how worthy to be praised:

The light whereof hath kindled heavenly fire

In my frail spirit, by her from baseness raised;

That being now with her huge brightness dazed,

Base thing I can no more endure to view;

But looking still on her, I stand amazed

At wondrous sight of so celestial hue.”

The first word of the first sentence is “The”, and the last word of the sentence is “Hue”. We
have a full stop at the end of the sentence, and our full stop generates our first sentence. The
second sentence of the poem is made of the last six lines.

“So when my tongue would speak her praises due,

It stopped is with thought's astonishment:
And when my pen would write her titles true,
It ravish'd is with fancy's wonderment:
Yet in my heart I then both speak and write
The wonder that my wit cannot endite.”
The first word of the second sentence is “So” and the last word of the second sentence is
“Endite”. Again, we have a full stop at the end of the sentence like the first sentence.

After identifying the sentence, the second step is identifying the sub sentences. When a
sentence is divided into two sentences with a colon or semicolon, it is called a sub-sentence.
The first sentence is made of four sub-sentences. The first and the second lines create the first
sub sentence. “ The sovereign beauty which I do admire,/Witness the world how worthy to be praised:”.
Behind the first sub-sentence, lines three and four make up the second sub-sentence. “The light
whereof hath kindled heavenly fire / In my frail spirit, by her from baseness raised;”. Behind the second, we
have the third sub-sentences and it is seen in lines five and six. Lastly, for the first sentence,
lines seven and eight comprise the fourth and the last sentence for the first one. When we
analyze the second sentence, we should continue with the same way. Lines nine and ten
include the first, and lines, lines eleven and twelve include the second sub-sentence of the
second sentence. And finally, the last two lines of the poem I mean lines thirteen and fourteen
contain the last sub-sentence of the second sentence.

The third step to analyze a poem is indicating the literal meaning of each sentence and
sub-sentence. Let's start with the first sentence’s first sub-sentence.

“The sovereign beauty which I do admire,

Witness the world how worthy to be praised:”

He says: “The world witnesses your sovereign, praiseworthy beauty which I admire”. Here,
he is trying to tell how beautiful his beloved is, and he indicates that the beauty of his beloved
should be praised and the world should be witnessed her beauty. Also, the poet uses poetic
license in this sub-sentence. Normally, the correct form of a sentence structure is should be S
V O, but in this sub-sentence, the order is O V S. “I” is the speaker. Now, let's move on to the
second sub-sentence.

“The light whereof hath kindled heavenly fire

In my frail spirit, by her from baseness raised;”

He says that your light burns heavenly fire in my spirit and you raised me from baseness. He
is trying to say that she is so beautiful that, her glaring beauty burns him and rises him from
his low status. Here the word “hath” is an archaic word that means “have”. Archaic word
means old word that is used in old English, and now it is not available. And also, whereof is
an archaic word and it means “with or by which”. The word frail means fragile. The poet uses
a poetic license here in the line fourth. There is a lack of object and false sentence structure. It
should be like “The light whereof hath kindled heavenly fire in my spirit and raised my spirit
from baseness”.

The third sub-sentence is saying that her light is so brilliant and he does not want to see
unworthy things anymore :

“That being now with her huge brightness dazed,

Base thing I can no more endure to view;”

The paraphrase of the sub-sentence is “Her bright dozed me off and I can not stand to see base
things anymore”. Also, there is a poetic license here. The correct form is: “That being dozed
with her huge brightness now, I can no more endure to view base thing”.

“But looking still on her, I stand amazed

At wondrous sight of so celestial hue.”

You see the fourth sub-sentence of the first sentence above. He is still praising the beauty of
his beloved. He is explaining his astonishment about her sight which is like the sky. .” The
word “hue” means color, and the word “celestial” is like heavenly. The paraphrase of the
sentence is like this: “I am still looking at her and I am fascinated with her sight that is like
heavenly. So, when we look at the general idea of the first sentence, it is seen that the poet
himself is the narrator. He thinks that the beauty of his beloved is adorable, her beauty makes
the poet unable to see base things.
In the second sentence’s first sub-sentence, the poet continues to celebrate how amazing the
beauty of his beloved.

“So when my tongue would speak her praises due,

It stopped is with thought's astonishment:”

The paraphrase of this sentence is “When I try to say how beautiful you are, I stop because of
my astonishment”. In the ninth line, there is a poetic license. The sentence is should be like “It
is stopped with thought’s astonishment:”. Here, “It” refers to “my tongue”. “Her praises due”
refers to the beauty of his wife.

“And when my pen would write her titles true,

It ravish'd is with fancy's wonderment:”

These lines are the second sentence’s second sub-sentence. In these lines, the
poet continues to indicate that he is stunned by her beauty. He could not say about her
because he was fascinated, then he tries to write about her, maybe he may be
successful while writing about her. But, no, he is so mesmerized that, he could not find
the words for her. The paraphrase is “And, when my pen tries to write your denotation
truly, it fills with astonishment of fancy”. In the line twelve, the poet is using poetic
license and archaic grammatical structure; “It ravish'd is with fancy's wonderment:” It should
be like this: “It is ravished with fancy’s wonderment”.

Lastly, I will analyze the last sub-sentence of the second sentence, also it is the last sub
sentences of the poem.

“Yet in my heart I then both speak and write

The wonder that my wit cannot endite.”

The poet finds a way to talk about her anymore. His feelings are still in his heart, so he can
write about her by using her emotions because sometimes logic can not be enough while
explaining the feelings. The paraphrase is “My emotions are in my heart yet, then I both speak
and write my feelings that I can not write down with my wisdom. “Endite” is an archaic word.
Actually, the correct writing of the word is “indite”, and it means to put in writing. In the
second sentence, the poet search for a way to shout out his love. He could not tell because he
is stunned by her beauty, and when he tries to write, words fall short. Finally, he realizes that
he can just explain his love if he listens to the voice of his heart because his feelings are in his
heart.

In this poem, the poet discourses about his beloved and how he loves this woman, how
he astonishes with her beauty and his adventure while he is trying to find how can he describe
his love. The poem contains very deep and intensive feelings. As it is a Renaissance poem, the
poem involves archaic words, and the poet uses poetic license in the poem. To analyze a
poem, following the steps that eases the poem to analyze is extremely important.