Sonnet 78

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Sonnet 78 in the 1609 Quarto
Q1 Q2 Q3 C So oft have I invok’d thee for my Muse And found such fair assistance in my verse As every alien pen hath got my use And under thee their poesy disperse. Thine eyes, that taught the dumb on high to sing And heavy ignorance aloft to fly, Have added feathers to the learned’s wing And given grace a double majesty. Yet be most proud of that which I compile, Whose influence is thine and born of thee: In others’ works thou dost but mend the style, And arts with thy sweet graces graced be; But thou art all my art and dost advance As high as learning my rude ignorance. 4 8 12 14 —William Shakespeare

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Q2



Q3



C

So oft have I invok’d thee for my Muse
And found such fair assistance in my verse
As every alien pen hath got my use
And under thee their poesy disperse.
Thine eyes, that taught the dumb on high to sing
And heavy ignorance aloft to fly,
Have added feathers to the learned’s wing
And given grace a double majesty.
Yet be most proud of that which I compile,
Whose influence is thine and born of thee:
In others’ works thou dost but mend the style,
And arts with thy sweet graces graced be;
But thou art all my art and dost advance
As high as learning my rude ignorance.

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8



12

14

Sonnet 78 is one of 154 sonnets written by the English playwright and poet William Shakespeare. It's a member of the Fair Youth sequence, in which the poet expresses his love towards a young man. Sonnet 78 marks the beginning of the Rival Poet sonnets.

The poet refers to the youth as his inspiration, comparing his own works to those of other poets, who have found in the youth creative inspiration for more traditional, learned forms of versifying. While other poets can add graces to their work by learning from the youth, the poet's work is completely defined by the youth's qualities.

Sonnet 78 is an English or Shakespearean sonnet. The English sonnet has three quatrains, followed by a final rhyming couplet. It follows the typical rhyme scheme of the form, abab cdcd efef gg and is composed in iambic pentameter, a type of poetic metre based on five pairs of metrically weak/strong syllabic positions. The 5th line exemplifies a regular iambic pentameter:

The three quatrains describe how the poet feels that his muse has been his inspiration; no other poet can even come close to how much he values his muse. The couplet restates the idea of the muse being the poet's one and only art and the lifter of his ignorance.

According to Helen Vendler, "Shakespeare excels in a form of verbal emphasis pointing up the conceptual oppositions of his verse." He consistently operates through antithesis: "Antithesis is the rhetorical contrast of ideas by means of parallel arrangements of words, clauses, or sentences (as in "action, not words")" (Webster Dictionary). In this first poem of the Rival Poet sequence, "a firm antithesis is drawn between the putatively rude speaker and the other poets clustered round the young man." They are all "learned" and practicing both art and style, while "the poor speaker's ignorance is twice insisted on, as is his muteness (he was dumb) before he saw the young man."