“Sonnet 29” is a famous poem written by William Shakespeare. Unlike most love poems that focus on the subject, “Sonnet 29” focuses mainly on the speaker and provides an exploration of the transformative power of love.
The poem follows the strict traditional structure of a sonnet, using a specific meter and rhyme scheme. The content of the sonnet also follows a linear structure, showing the speaker’s progression from despair to a hopeful, joyful mood when he remembers his beloved.
The speaker of the sonnet appears to be a poetic persona of the author. The poem is narrated in the first person and reveals the troubled mind of the speaker.
Due to the poem’s age, the language may seem complex and old-fashioned. Shakespeare makes extensive use of personification, as well as other literary devices such as metaphor and repetition.
Here you can read an extract from the study guide:
In the second stanza, the speaker expresses his wish to be different, comparing himself with others: “Wishing me like to one more rich in hope, / Featured like him, like him with friends possessed,” (ll. 5-6). The repetition of the word “like” highlights the speaker’s longing for things he believes he lacks, such as hope, physical attractiveness, or friends. The following line continues this idea: “Desiring this man’s art and that man’s scope,” (l. 7).
The word “heaven” is also repeated. In the first stanza, the speaker refers to a heaven that is deaf (l. 3) to his cries. In this way, the speaker implies that God does not hear his suffering. In contrast, in the third stanza, the speaker compares himself to a lark that “sings hymns at heaven’s gate” (l. 12). This contrast highlights the stark contrast between the speaker's mood at the beginning of the poem and his joy later on. Unlike his cries which were unheard, the speaker’s joy is so strong it even reaches heaven.
