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's flame with self-substantial fuel,
Making a famine where abundance lies,
Thy self 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, mak'st waste in niggarding:
Pity the world, or else this glutton be,
To eat the world's due, by the grave and thee.
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's flame with self-substantial fuel,
Making a famine where abundance lies,
Thy self 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, mak'st waste in niggarding:
Pity the world, or else this glutton be,
To eat the world's due, by the grave and thee.
This is Shakespeare's first sonnet, at least in the "young man" series. So, it will be interesting to look at this sonnet compared to the other shakesperean sonnets that we have analyzed. Since this is the very first sonnet, we can use context clues and intuition to predict that this will be more loving and possibly even more sincere than later sonnets, like the ones to the dark lady which just seem sketchy and awkward, or the ones that involve the young man's other suitor or the rival or whatever. All of those seem to have the potential to be tainted with some alterior motive, but this one is early enough, well its the earliest one so duh, but it still probably has some sort of innocence in it that has yet to be tainted. Granted I have not read the thing yet, but I soon will. I know that this is a shakespearean sonnet not only because I searched "Shakespeare sonnet number 1", but also because of its ABAB CDCD EFEF GG rhyme scheme, the fourteen lines cut into three quatrians and a copluet, and finally the fact that it stick s to iambic pentameter, meaning that it has ten syllables per line as well as going by the hard soft syllable rule that goes along with this. So, with not context clues, we could know that this was a shakespearean sonnet. It differs from an italian sonnet or a petrarchian sonnet because of the rhyme scheme since the other types of sonnets follow either an interlocking ABAB BCBC CDCD EE rhyme scheme or the other one which I can not currently remember.
So basically what I think that shakespeare is saying in this poem, apart from the obvious subject of love, is that he truly adores and admires his young man suitor guy, and he thinks that his beauty can stand on its on while some others have to have some fuel for it. That can be seen in the line "Feed'st thy light's flame with self-substantial fuel," see so here shakespeare is saying that this guys "flame" or his beauty or life force or something is basically eternal, an idea that ocnnects back to the shakespearean sonnet we read in class where he was like apologizing for not praising the kid but then covered himself by saying that his beauty would last even after wars ans such, actually no thats a mix of two of the sonnests that we read, but the idea is still there.
So basically in conclusion, this sonnet just like evry sonnet is about how shakespeare is in love with his young man and he thinks that his beauty and life force are eternal.
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