Analysis of Sonnet 140: Be wise as thou art cruel; do not press
William Shakespeare 1564 (Stratford-upon-Avon) – 1616 (Stratford-upon-Avon)
Be wise as thou art cruel; do not press
My tongue-tied patience with too much disdain,
Lest sorrow lend me words and words express
The manner of my pity-wanting pain.
If I might teach thee wit, better it were,
Though not to love, yet, love, to tell me so,
As testy sick men, when their deaths be near,
No news but health from their physicians know.
For if I should despair, I should grow mad,
And in my madness might speak ill of thee,
Now this ill-wresting world is grown so bad,
Mad slanderers by mad ears believèd be.
That I may not be so, nor thou belied,
Bear thine eyes straight, though thy proud heart go wide.
Scheme | ABABCDEDFGFGHH |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 1111110111 1111011101 1101110101 0101110101 1111111010 1111111111 1101111111 1111110101 1111011111 0011011111 1111011111 11111111 1111111101 1111111111 |
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 621 |
Words | 120 |
Sentences | 5 |
Stanzas | 1 |
Stanza Lengths | 14 |
Lines Amount | 14 |
Letters per line (avg) | 34 |
Words per line (avg) | 8 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 475 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 118 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 36 sec read
- 122 Views
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"Sonnet 140: Be wise as thou art cruel; do not press" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 5 May 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/41441/sonnet-140%3A-be-wise-as-thou-art-cruel%3B-do-not-press>.
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