Time in Spenser’s Amoretti and Epithalamion, and Shakespeare’s Sonnets

Abstract

The sonnet which is originated in Italy is a highly structured poetic form. It flourishes in the Elizabethan period in order to write love sonnets about a beloved and idealized lady. This study focuses on the theme of time in both Edmund Spenser’s Amoretti and Epithalamion, and William Shakespeare’s Sonnets. Spenser’s Amoretti, which covers New Year’s Day celebrations, reflects on Spenser’s past forty-one years of life. In Epithalamion, Spenser records the hours of the day from pre-dawn to wedding night, including the passage of a year in 365 long lines which also correspond to days in a year. Its content moves from the excitement of youth to the anxieties of the middle age, beginning with high hopes for a happy day and ending with record of the speaker’s legacy for future generations. Spenser tries to prevent the passage of time by freezing it in his verses. Shakespeare’s Sonnets begins with the narrator’s begging the fair lord to find a woman who will bear his child so that his beauty can be assured for posterity. The poet complains about the ravages of time and its harmful effects on the beauty of the fair lord, and tries to fight the inevitable by forcing the fair lord to convey his perfection to a child. The poet defines time as a dimension of suffering, and asks the fair lord to leave him. In conclusion, time is described as unmanageable power of unforeseen changes and chances as well as a non-personal ominous determinant.