The Renaissance

Edmund Spencer

Edmund Spenser is considered one of the preeminent poets of the English language. He was born
into the family of an obscure cloth maker named John Spenser, who belonged to the Merchant
Taylors’ Company and was married to a woman named Elizabeth, about whom almost nothing is
known. Since parish records for the area of London where the poet grew up were destroyed in the
Great Fire of 1666, his birth date is uncertain. However, the dates of his schooling and a remark in
one of his sonnets (Amoretti 60) lend credence to the date traditionally assigned, which is around
1552. Among Spenser’s many contributions to English literature, he is the originator and namesake
of the Spenserian stanza and the Spenserian sonnet.

Sonnet

A sonnet is a one-stanza, 14-line poem, written in iambic pentameter. The sonnet, which derived
from the Italian word sonetto, meaning “a little sound or song," is "a popular classical form that has
compelled poets for centuries," says Poets.org. The most common—and simplest—type is known as
the English or Shakespearean sonnet, but there are several other types.

Sonnet 75(One Day I Wrote Her Name Upon The Strand)

‘Sonnet 75’ is part of Amoretti, a sonnet cycle that describes Spenser’s courtship and marriage to
Elizabeth Boyle. Amoretti was published in 1595 and it included 89 sonnets and a series of short
poems called Anacreontics and Epithalamion. The volume was titled “Amoretti and Epithalamion.
Written not long since by Edmund Spenser”

One day I wrote her name upon the strand,

But came the waves and washed it away:

Again I wrote it with a second hand,

But came the tide, and made my pains his prey.

"Vain man," said she, "that dost in vain assay,

A mortal thing so to immortalize;

For I myself shall like to this decay,

And eke my name be wiped out likewise."

"Not so," (quod I) "let baser things devise

To die in dust, but you shall live by fame:

My verse your virtues rare shall eternize,

And in the heavens write your glorious name:

Where whenas death shall all the world subdue,

Our love shall live, and later life renew."

Literary devices

 Imagery
The use of sand to denote time
 Alliteration
But came the waves and washed it away:
But came the tide, and made my pains his prey.
 Assonance
One day I wrote her name upon the strand,
But came the waves and washed it away:
 Metaphors

To die in dust

 Rhyming scheme
ABAB BCBC CDCD EE
 Symbolism
Writing name of the sand symbolizes trying to immortalize a mortal being.
 Personification
Time and sea have been personified in this sonnet
 Theme

Love that the persona desires to immortalize

No one can live forever, but the speaker is going to try to immortalize his lover’s virtues