Sonnet 44

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Sonnet 44 in the 1609 Quarto
Q1 Q2 Q3 C If the dull substance of my flesh were thought, Injurious distance should not stop my way; For then, despite of space, I would be brought, From limits far remote, where thou dost stay. No matter then although my foot did stand Upon the farthest earth remov’d from thee; For nimble thought can jump both sea and land, As soon as think the place where he would be. But, ah, thought kills me, that I am not thought, To leap large lengths of miles when thou art gone, But that, so much of earth and water wrought, I must attend time’s leisure with my moan; Receiving nought by elements so slow But heavy tears, badges of either’s woe. 4 8 12 14 —William Shakespeare [1]

Sonnet 44 is one of 154 sonnets written by the English playwright and poet William Shakespeare. It is a member of the Fair Youth sequence, in which the poet expresses his love towards a young man. Sonnet 44 is continued in Sonnet 45 .

Structure

Sonnet 44 is an English or Shakespearean sonnet, which contains three quatrains followed by a final rhyming couplet. It follows the typical rhyme scheme of the form, ABAB CDCD EFEF GG, and is written in iambic pentameter, a type of poetic metre based on five pairs of metrically weak/strong syllabic positions. The fifth line exemplifies a regular iambic pentameter:

 ×  /  ×    /  ×   /     ×  /    ×    /  No matter then although my foot did stand (44.5) 

/ = ictus, a metrically strong syllabic position. × = nonictus.

The sonnet is quite regular metrically (for example, a three-syllable "injurious" maintains regularity in line two), but implements a few variations, for example in the first and last lines:

 ×   ×  /    /   ×    /   ×   /    ×     /  If the dull substance of my flesh were thought, (44.1)   ×   /  ×  /      /  ×  ×  /   ×     /  But heavy tears, badges of either's woe. (44.14) 

...which contain, respectively, a rightward movement of the first ictus (resulting in a four-position figure, × × / /, sometimes referred to as a minor ionic), and a mid-line reversal ("badges").

Criticism

Critics have mentioned Sonnet 44 is directly coupled to Sonnet 45 and lacks a definite conclusion. ^[2]

Recordings

• Poeterra, for the 2014 album, When in Disgrace
• Paul Kelly, for the 2016 album, Seven Sonnets & a Song

References

1. Pooler, C[harles] Knox, ed. (1918). The Works of Shakespeare: Sonnets. The Arden Shakespeare [1st series]. London: Methuen & Company. OCLC   4770201.
2. Fineman, Joel (1986). Shakespeare's Perjured Eye: The Invention of Poetic Subjectivity in the Sonnets. Univ of California Press. pp. 227–229. ISBN   0520054865 . Retrieved 1 May 2015.

Further reading

First edition and facsimile

• Shakespeare, William (1609). Shake-speares Sonnets: Never Before Imprinted. London: Thomas Thorpe.
• Lee, Sidney, ed. (1905). Shakespeares Sonnets: Being a reproduction in facsimile of the first edition. Oxford: Clarendon Press. OCLC   458829162.

Variorum editions

• Alden, Raymond Macdonald, ed. (1916). The Sonnets of Shakespeare. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. OCLC   234756.
• Rollins, Hyder Edward, ed. (1944). A New Variorum Edition of Shakespeare: The Sonnets [2 Volumes]. Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott & Co. OCLC   6028485. — Volume I and Volume II at the Internet Archive

Modern critical editions

• Atkins, Carl D., ed. (2007). Shakespeare's Sonnets: With Three Hundred Years of Commentary . Madison: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press. ISBN   978-0-8386-4163-7. OCLC   86090499.
• Booth, Stephen, ed. (2000) [1st ed. 1977]. Shakespeare's Sonnets (Rev. ed.). New Haven: Yale Nota Bene. ISBN   0-300-01959-9. OCLC   2968040.
• Burrow, Colin, ed. (2002). The Complete Sonnets and Poems . The Oxford Shakespeare. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN   978-0192819338. OCLC   48532938.
• Duncan-Jones, Katherine, ed. (2010) [1st ed. 1997]. Shakespeare's Sonnets. Arden Shakespeare, third series (Rev. ed.). London: Bloomsbury. ISBN   978-1-4080-1797-5. OCLC   755065951. — 1st edition at the Internet Archive
• Evans, G. Blakemore, ed. (1996). The Sonnets . The New Cambridge Shakespeare. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN   978-0521294034. OCLC   32272082.
• Kerrigan, John, ed. (1995) [1st ed. 1986]. The Sonnets ; and, A Lover's Complaint . New Penguin Shakespeare (Rev. ed.). Penguin Books. ISBN   0-14-070732-8. OCLC   15018446.
• Mowat, Barbara A.; Werstine, Paul, eds. (2006). Shakespeare's Sonnets & Poems. Folger Shakespeare Library. New York: Washington Square Press. ISBN   978-0743273282. OCLC   64594469.
• Orgel, Stephen, ed. (2001). The Sonnets . The Pelican Shakespeare (Rev. ed.). New York: Penguin Books. ISBN   978-0140714531. OCLC   46683809.
• Vendler, Helen, ed. (1997). The Art of Shakespeare's Sonnets . Cambridge, Massachusetts: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press. ISBN   0-674-63712-7. OCLC   36806589.

External links

• Analysis
• Shakespeare Online