Idea: Sonnet 61

Love Prevails

"Idea: Sonnet 61" by Michael Drayton is a fourteen line Petrarchan sonnet that dramatizes the conflicting emotions that arise from an intimate relationship coming to an abrupt end. After analyzing and doing several closer readings, I learned that "Idea: Sonnet 61" is actually about the poet’s own conflicting emotions and feelings from a harsh break up. However, it was no ordinary and flippant relationship. It was a serious relationship that involved great amounts of passion that came to a sudden abrupt end. It was a relationship that had a great amount of importance to the poet, whether he is talking about his first wife or even his first love. I believe I confidently can determine and come to the conclusion that this poem is about the poet’s love of his life and his contradicting feelings he is having during and after their separation.

The first part of the poem the author is implying that he wants to disperse and split up and that it’s completely the best thing for him to do. However, some things suggest to the reader that this is not true and he wants to continue with this relationship. For example, the phrase “kiss and part” (line 1) clue the reader in on the poet’s confusion. When you break up with someone, you don’t kiss them goodbye. The splitting usually will conclude with a handshake or even a hug, something a lot less intimate than a kiss. With the use of these words, the speaker is unconsciously allowing his inner emotions to be seen.

A caesura appears in line two separating “Nay, I have done:” and “You get no more of me.” This break allows both of these thoughts to be extra powerful lines. They are also worded abruptly and intensely. “And I am glad, yea, glad, with all my heart…” (line 3...

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... to exemplify the simplexes of the breakup. The rhyme schemes present in the poem are also methodical. Every other line in the first seven lines and lines nine through twelve all end with perfect rhymes (“part” (line 1), “heart” (line 3), “me” (line 2), “free” (line 4), etc.) However, in lines six and eight and thirteen and fourteen, eye-rhymes are present. Eye-rhymes are words that all end in the same letters. For example, again and retain. Both words end in “ain”. The last two lines also have eye-rhymes with words ending in “over”. This kind of conveys a deeper meaning to me. Is it ironic that the letters together create the eye-rhyme and is also the word “over”? I believe that this is almost a clue to the puzzle. I believe that if the reader discovers this irony, it would wipe away all anticipation and hope of them reconciling their love for one another.