Explication Of Sonnet 23 By Mary Wroth

In this explication I will explore the meaning of “Sonnet 23” by Mary Wroth. I will focus my examination on this sonnet’s use of language, form, and rhetorical devices – especially puns.

The first four lines of “Sonnet 23” dramatizes the sonneteer’s preference for pursuits of the mind and soul. The sonneteer muses about activities others enjoy in their “pleasing pastime” (Wroth Line 1) and how the sonneteer’s “thoughts do far above these [pastimes] prize” (Wroth 4). In other words, the primary conflict explored in this sonnet involves pursuits of the mind and soul contrasted against pursuits of the body. In this regard, the sonneteer deems both intellectual and spiritual pursuits as “higher” or more significant than pursuits of the body. Specifically,

Furthermore, both lines thirteen and fourteen are rhetorical questions: they are both answered in the previous three stanzas. To explain, the fond pleasures of the body have already been shown to not “move” (Wroth 13) the sonneteer; and the music “in dear thoughts of love” (Wroth 14) contrasts the sonneteer’s love of Christ with the love others have for music. Thus, the sonneteer is declaring, rather than questioning, that the source of love is within his or her “dear thoughts,” (Wroth 14) of the spirit and cannot be found in music or any other pursuit of the body.

In conclusion, “Sonnet 23” utilizes the form of a Petrarchan sonnet and follows the meter and rhyming scheme laid out in this form with few deviations. This sonnet employs various puns to contrast the purity of pursuits of the mind and soul against the un-Christian or impure nature of bodily pursuits. Rather than a typical question - response type sonnet, this sonnet is an exploration of the sonneteer’s personal feelings for the people around him or her and is not addressed to anyone, thus acting as more of a journal entry than a shared work of