A Tribulation of Love: An Analysis of Sonnet 147

Shakespeare has been noted as one of most quoted romantic writers. One of his most iterated lines is “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day, Thou are more lovely and more temperate” (Sonnet 12, 1-2). Despite using copious Petrarchan images Shakespeare also coveys the punitive characteristics of love as seen in Sonnet 147. Shakespeare articulates his definition of love through fashioning love as a disease by using structure, metaphor, tone and imagery.

Shakespearean sonnets contain three quatrains and a couplet with a strict rhyme scheme. The quatrains alternate in rhyme (ABAB CDCD EFEF) and end with rhyming couplet. The entire fourteen lines are written in iambic pentameter – which consist of five iambic feet. Iambic feet contain an unstressed syllable followed stressed syllable. Furthermore each quatrain introduces or expands upon an idea. As demonstrated in Sonnet 147 that focuses around comparing his love to a disease each quatrain advances this point. The first quatrain depicts the disease itself and his vulnerability to it:

“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.” (1043)

The second quatrain expands on said metaphor and adds a new idea. The speaker reckons the idea of reason to as foolish as a physician attempting to cure him of lovesickness – an impossible feat:

“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 expect.” (1043)

The third quatrain describes the consequences for abandoning reason as the narrator is now driven mad. Furthermore the narrator acknowledges that he is n...

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...onnet 147 employs literary techniques in order to covey the turbulent side of love. Many of Shakespeare’s other sonnets focus of the beauty of ideal love, but Sonnet 147 shows the destructive side. Love can be all consuming and drive one to madness. Similar to have fevers can cause delusions; men can turn mad when in love. The structure, metaphor, tone and imagery contribute in carrying the overall message – that love is a disease throughout Sonnet 147.

Works Cited

Shakespeare, William. “Sonnet 12.” The Norton Anthology of English Literature: The Sixteenth Century the Early Seventeenth Century. Ed. M.H Abrams. New York: W. W. Norton and Company. 2000. 1030-.

Shakespeare, William. “Sonnet 147.” The Norton Anthology of English Literature: The Sixteenth Century the Early Seventeenth Century. Ed. M.H Abrams. New York: W. W. Norton and Company. 2000. 11043.