Sonnet 30 analysis

Shakespeare's "Sonnet 30" is a Shakespearean/Elizabethan sonnet, composed of three quatrains and a couplet. In the couplet, the writer tends to take a different track compared to the rest of the sonnet. The change in this one is signaled by a single word-"But."

The entire three quatrains are devoted to showing us his grief over his "fair lord." Shakespeare uses language in this sonnet to draw the reader in to the emotional pain portrayed with lines like, "I summon up" and "Then I can." These lines help draw the reader to his sad feelings about his friend balanced by the realization that he had such a friend. A courtroom motif is used in the first part with "session," "summon up," and "cancell'd." This motif is used to stress his dependence financially on his fair lord. He also uses the words "expense," "grievances," "account," "paid," and "losses" to further emphasize that fiscal relationship. The speaker realizes in the poem that the fair lord has credits on his side. In other words, the speaker can never repay all that his fair lord has given him.

ANALYSIS

sessions (1): the sitting of a court. The court imagery is continued with 'summon up' in line 2.

old woes (4): By replaying his 'old woes' over in his mind, the poet is wasting precious time that could be spent thinking more joyous thoughts. Hence 'my dear time's waste.'

love's long since cancell'd woe (7): is the sorrow the poet had once felt over the loss of his close friends; loss that has dulled over the years but now returns as he thinks of the past.

And moan...sight (8): Some scholars interpret this line to mean 'I lament the cost to me of many a lost sigh.' "'Sight' for 'sigh' was archaic by Shakespeare's time and seems only to have been used for the sake of rhyme. Sighing was considered deleterious to health; However, the ordinary word 'sight' also makes sense in this context; that is, the poet has lost many things that he has seen and loved.

All losses...end. (14): His friend is as great as the sum of all the many things the poet sought but did not find.