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LECTURE -11

SHAKESPEARIAN SONNETS

SONNET - 106

When in the chronicle of wasted time

I see descriptions of the fairest wights,
And beauty making beautiful old rime,
In praise of ladies dead and lovely knights,
Then, in the blazon of sweet beauty’s best,
Of hand, of foot, of lip, of eye, of brow,
I see their antique pen would have express’d
Even such a beauty as you master now.
So all their praises are but prophecies
Of this our time, all you prefiguring;
And, for they look’d but with divining eyes,
They had not skill enough your worth to sing:
For we, which now behold these present days,
Have eyes to wonder, but lack tongues to praise.

Introduction
In sonnet 106, the speaker is studying earlier poetry and discovering that those
writers had limited talent. They were not able to accomplish the mature level of art
that this speaker now has done.

Commentary
Addressing the sonnet, the speaker in Shakespeare sonnet 106 celebrates the
poem’s ability to skilfully portray beauty that outshines that of the ancients.
First Quatrain: An Earlier Age

When in the chronicle of wasted time

I see descriptions of the fairest wights,
And beauty making beautiful old rime,
In praise of ladies dead and lovely knights,
The speaker of Shakespeare sonnet 106 has been reading poetry from earlier
generations, and he notes that there are poems that seek to portray beauty. They
attempt to capture beauty in their "beautiful old rime," by describing and
complimenting women and warriors. The speaker is making no particular judgment
about those poems yet but is merely reporting his findings, framing his information in
a subordinate clause, beginning with the subordinate conjunction "when." The entire
first quatrain consists of the subordinate clause; therefore, the reader has to wait for
second stanza to finish the speaker’s complete thought.
Second Quatrain: Mastery over Matter
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Then, in the blazon of sweet beauty’s best,

Of hand, of foot, of lip, of eye, of brow,
I see their antique pen would have express’d
Even such a beauty as you master now.
The speaker then asserts that while noting the best offered by these ancient poems,
he understands that those poets were attempting to accomplish what his poems
have now mastered. Those poems that relied on the exaggeration of beauty of
physical body parts such as "Of hand, of foot, of lip, of eye, of brow" obviously
cannot compare favorably to the art of this present poet/speaker who has taken his
art to the spiritual level. In the first quatrain, the speaker had begun by even averring
that when all is said and done those poets actually wasted their time in composing
such vulgar descriptions. He now clips their flights of fancy by stating that their
attempt to express beauty exists in "a blazon." Although they tried to accomplish
greatness, they remained immature and obvious in their attempts.
Third Quatrain: Bringing Goals to Fruition

So all their praises are but prophecies

Of this our time, all you prefiguring;
And, for they look’d but with divining eyes,
They had not skill enough your worth to sing:
Thus, all that those earlier poetry dabblers were able to accomplish has amounted to
mere "prophecies." They had certain artistic goals in mind that they were not able to
bring to fruition. They do serve as a precursor, however. They were able to
conjecture that some form might exist that would be able to do justice to the concept
of beauty, but they did not possess the "skill" needed to actually accomplish the task
set before them.
The Couplet: The Accomplishment of True Talent
For we, which now behold these present days,
Have eyes to wonder, but lack tongues to praise.
In the couplet, the speaker then speculates and formulates a claim that those earlier
bards would mouth, had they the ability to experience what this brilliant, talented
sonneteer now achieves. They would report that they also saw great beauty and
were inspired, but they would have to admit that they did not have the skill to write
well enough to enshrine their observations.

This poem is a sonnet of 14 lines, written in the traditional Shakespearean sonnet

format which Shakespeare uses throughout his sonnet cycle. It is part of the initial
126 sonnets, all of which are thought to be addressed to the same unknown young
man, known as the Fair Youth by scholars.

In the sonnet, the speaker describes how, when reading older works ("the chronicle
of wasted time") and, potentially, when simply thinking about the past, he often sees
references to beauty. This might be the beauty of "lovely knights" or "ladies dead,"
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but, either way, when the speaker reads these descriptions of beautiful people, he is
convinced that the beauty of his beloved would have been singled out for praise in
the same way, as he fits perfectly into the idea of what is considered beautiful.

The speaker determines, then, that the "praise" expressed by those who are writing
in the past was actually prophetic. He feels that every beautiful person ever
described, and every expression of beauty ever committed to "rhyme," is actually an
anticipation of his own beloved. These people with their "antique pen[s]" were only
"prefiguring" the subject of the sonnet.

The speaker is only sad that, in the end, the writers did not have sufficient skill to
express the "worth" of his beloved. He, the beloved, is too beautiful, engendering
"wonder" in those who look upon him in the present day, while the speaker is unable
to "praise" him adequately with words.

Analysis
Sonnet 106 fits into a tradition of poetry in which the poet claims to be unable to write
a poem that adequately describes its subject, which it then, paradoxically, manages
to do. The sonnet uses language that intentionally evokes the medieval past. The
word chronicle suggests ancient stories, often in verse, of times in the
past; wight was an archaic word in Shakespeare's time, for human beings;
and ladies and knights refer to the age of chivalry. The kinds of figures described in
this type of ancient poetry were not real individuals, but "types," or ideal characters.
As many other sonnets do, Sonnet 106 also attributes great power to beauty. In line
3 the speaker says that "beauty" helped to make actual poetry or "rhyme" beautiful.
In other words, the beauty of the content affected the beauty of the poetry. But the
ancient chroniclers never saw the speaker's beloved: they were merely "divining" or
conjecturing what he might be like. Referring to poets of the speaker's day,
Shakespeare asserts they do not have the words to adequately describe him either.
Therefore, this sonnet seems to be exploring the limitations of art to truly express
beauty.