SONNET 147

NUR NAZLIN BINTI RASLAN 2008411216 FARAH NAJWA BINTI MUHAMAH PADEL 2008411286

SONNET 147 BY WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

My love is as a fever, longing still For that which longer nurseth the disease, Feeding on that which doth preserve the ill, The uncertain sickly appetite to please. My reason, the physician to my love, Angry that his prescriptions are not kept, Hath left me, and I desperate now approve Desire is death, which physic did except. Past cure I am, now reason is past care, And frantic-mad with evermore unrest; My thoughts and my discourse as madmen's are, At random from the truth vainly express'd; For I have sworn thee fair and thought thee bright, Who art as black as hell, as dark as night.

SONNET ANALYSIS
y Suggests love as a sickness- through fever, disease, ill, y y y y

physician, prescription, death, and cure . This sonnet is about the speaker who is infatuated with his love. The speaker compares his desire / love to fever. In the past time, people think that we get fever through food. So, the speaker tries to say that if we keep on feeding, it will preserve the ill. So does the desire.

y Even the speaker knows that his reasonable physician (ability to

think and reason) would at least keep him aware of the efficacy of keeping body and soul together. Unfortunately, the speaker is unable to control his obsessive desire. y Even if the desire could kill him, he will keep on loving. He thinks his obsession cannot be cured. y The speaker becomes like a madman because of his desire as he cannot think and speak as usual. He no longer possesses the capacity for rational thought, because of his irrational longing. y The speaker cannot see the truth about his lover. He was sure that his lover was lovely and good but it is not.

THEMES
1.

Lovesick leads to madness

y y y

My thoughts and my discourse as madmen's are The poets love is driving him out of his mind. He is imagining things and babbling like a madman. He no longer knows what he is saying or if his thoughts have any meaning.

2.

Desire is a disease - My love is as a fever, longing still, For that which longer nurseth the disease - The poets love keeps him desiring and to be more sick. - The poet relates his desire as a disease with the words disease, nurseth, fever and ill

LITERARY DEVICES
y DICTION

- the use of Old English language - thee,express'd and nurseth. y SIMILE - My love is as a fever - My thoughts and my discourse as madmen's are -Who art as black as hell, as dark as night

y METAPHOR

- Desire is death - My reason, the physician to my love-ability to think

clearly
y SYMBOLISM

1. Fever, nurseth, disease, ill y Love / desire sickness