Analysis of Sonnet 108: What's in the brain that ink may character
William Shakespeare 1564 (Stratford-upon-Avon) – 1616 (Stratford-upon-Avon)
What's in the brain that ink may character
Which hath not figured to thee my true spirit?
What's new to speak, what now to register,
That may express my love, or thy dear merit?
Nothing, sweet boy, but yet, like prayers divine,
I must each day say o'er the very same,
Counting no old thing old—thou mine, I thine—
Even as when first I hallowed thy fair name.
So that eternal love in love's fresh case
Weighs not the dust and injury of age,
Nor gives to necessary wrinkles place,
But makes antiquity for aye his page,
Finding the first conceit of love there bred
Where time and outward form would show it dead.
Scheme | ABABCDCDEFEFGG |
---|---|
Poetic Form | Shakespearean sonnet |
Metre | 1001111100 11110111110 1111111100 11011111110 1011111101 11111100101 1011111111 10111110111 1101010111 1101010011 111100101 1101001111 1001011111 1101011111 |
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 616 |
Words | 116 |
Sentences | 5 |
Stanzas | 1 |
Stanza Lengths | 14 |
Lines Amount | 14 |
Letters per line (avg) | 34 |
Words per line (avg) | 8 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 474 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 114 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on April 26, 2023
- 36 sec read
- 124 Views
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"Sonnet 108: What's in the brain that ink may character" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 10 Jun 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/41406/sonnet-108%3A-what%27s-in-the-brain-that-ink-may-character>.
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