Edmund Spenser
Edmund Spenser
Edmund Spenser
Edmund Spenser
Edmund Spenser
Edmund Spenser
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Edmund Spenser
Edmund Spenser
Edmund Spenser
Edmund Spenser
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Edmund Spenser
Sonnet 6 of the Amoretti is an example of Spenser at his word-weaving best (and Spenser’s best is essentially the best possible).
Here, he braids negatives throughtout the first thirteen lines of the sonnet, so that at the end he forms a positive “knot that ever shall remaine.”
Shakespeare does so...
Be nought dismayd that her unmoved mind
doth still persist in her rebellious pride:
such love, not lyke to lusts of baser kynd,
the harder wonne, the firmer will abide.
The durefull Oake, whose sap in not yet dride,
is long ere it conceive the kindling fyre:
but when it once doth burne, it doth divide
great heat, and makes his flames to heaven aspire.
So hard it is to kindle new desire
in gentle brest that shall endure for ever:
deepe is the wound, that dints the parts entire
with chast affects, that naught but death can sever.
Then thinke not long in taking litle paine,
to knit the knot, that ever shall remiane.
Edmund Spenser released Amoretti: Sonnet 6 on Sun Jan 01 1595.