Sonnet 84

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The first five lines of Sonnet 84 in the 1609 Quarto
Q1 Q2 Q3 C Who is it that says most? which can say more Than this rich praise, that you alone are you? In whose confine immured is the store Which should example where your equal grew. Lean penury within that pen doth dwell That to his subject lends not some small glory; But he that writes of you, if he can tell That you are you, so dignifies his story. Let him but copy what in you is writ, Not making worse what nature made so clear, And such a counterpart shall fame his wit, Making his style admired every where. You to your beauteous blessings add a curse, Being fond on praise, which makes your praises worse. 4 8 12 14 —William Shakespeare

Q1



Q2



Q3



C

Who is it that says most? which can say more
Than this rich praise, that you alone are you?
In whose confine immured is the store
Which should example where your equal grew.
Lean penury within that pen doth dwell
That to his subject lends not some small glory;
But he that writes of you, if he can tell
That you are you, so dignifies his story.
Let him but copy what in you is writ,
Not making worse what nature made so clear,
And such a counterpart shall fame his wit,
Making his style admired every where.
You to your beauteous blessings add a curse,
Being fond on praise, which makes your praises worse.

4



8



12

14

Sonnet 84 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, and the seventh sonnet of the Rival Poet subsequence.

Who can say more than that the youth is who he is? Writing normally adds glory to its theme, but the youth can only glorify writing by his own perfection, creating a literary style to be admired. But the youth's love of flattery corrupts the praises of his admirers.

Sonnet 84 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 11th line exemplifies a regular iambic pentameter:

It is followed (in line 12) by an initial reversal, a common metrical variation.

The meter demands a few variant pronunciations: line 3's "confine" is stressed on the second syllable (even though a noun) and "immurèd" must be pronounced with 3 syllables; while line 13's "beauteous" serves as 2 syllables and 14's "being" serves as 1.