Friday, November 13, 2009

Can someone explain Sonnet 35 by Spenser?

MY hungry eyes through greedy covetise,


still to behold the object of their pain:


with no contentment can themselues suffice,


but having, pine, and having not, complain.


For lacking it they cannot life sustain,


and having it they gaze on it the more:


in their amazement like Narcissus vain


whose eyes him starv'd: so plenty makes me poor.


Yet are mine eyes so filled with the store


of that fair sight, that nothing else they brook,


but loathe the things which they did like before,


and can no more endure on them to look.


All this world's glory seemeth vain to me,


and all their shows but shadows saving she.

Can someone explain Sonnet 35 by Spenser?
This is a pretty standard paradox sonnet; roughly paraphrased, he says, "My eyes are filled with desire to look at the very thing that causes them pain (that is, the woman he loves). The only way I am happy is when I look at her, yet looking at her makes me miserable. I am like Narcissus, who was in a similar condition. Still, just looking at her fills me with joy; I don't want to look at anything but her."





The dominant (indeed the only) theme is the paradox of unrequited love.


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