Amoretti LXXV: one DAy i Wrote her nAme

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, Some lovers strive to leave a
lasting trace of their
But came the tide, and made my pains his prey.
relationship, even after
"Vain man," said she, "that dost in vain assay, death. This desire to leave
A mortal thing so to immortalize; an imprint is a basic human
tendency to be immortal.
For I myself shall like to this decay, The speaker in “One Day I
And eke my name be wiped out likewise." Wrote Her Name” by
Edmund Spenser also
"Not so," (quod I) "let baser things devise
expresses the same desire.
To die in dust, but you shall live by fame:
My verse your vertues 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."

“Amoretti LXXV: One Day I Wrote Her Name” is an Elizabethan sonnet where
the speaker expresses his yearning to immortalize his love. The lover writes
her name one day on the sand of a beach. After a while, the waves erase it.
He writes it again, and the tide washes away her name again.

After witnessing his attempt, his beloved informs him that it is impossible to
write her name without the wave affecting it. Like his words, everything and
everyone is transitory. He replies that he will counter death by writing a
poem about her through his verse which will eternize her virtues and
immortalize his love. Death cannot do anything to them, even if everything
perishes.

1-4 :The speaker is in contemplative mode and recalls a day in the past. He is at the strand with his
lady and is enjoying their intimate moments. The speaker writes her name on the sand. As he finishes,
the waves come to the shore and wipe out the letters. He rewrites it, but his effort goes into vain
since the tide cleans it again.

This act of inscribing her name implies attempts by man to eternalize the existence of love. It is a
tendency that we often see in most of us. The speaker tries to make his beloved immortal.

But the waves and tide are obstacles on his path. The effort of the speaker to make her immortal
continues, and his reattempt highlights his struggle. Unfortunately, the waves and tide wash away his
efforts.
They suggest the unstoppable passing of time that alter or destroy things. The speaker personifies the
tide as a dominant person who has made his pains his prey. He uses personification to suggest the
superiority of time over mortal beings.

The personification of the tide as a predator also reinforces the idea of impermanence and the
inevitability of change. The speaker depicts the tide as an untamed force. Similar to the unstoppable
waves, he cannot stop it from cleaning the name written on the beach.

The word “prey” further emphasizes the idea of the uncontrollable power of time over human
endeavors. Therefore, the “pain” implies a sense of helplessness of the speaker after seeing the name
wiped away. He emphasizes that no matter how much effort we put into something, we cannot
prevent the inevitable changes that come with time

5-8 : The alliteration of the “v” in the fifth line emphasizes the futility of his actions. The efforts of the
speaker to preserve the name of his beloved is ineffective, and that time will ultimately erase them.

Upon witnessing the speaker writing her name on the sand, the woman points out his futile attempts
to make her name everlasting. He is trying to immortalize the name of a mortal. She argues that no
matter how many times he writes her name, it will not last. Every being and everything in the world
will eventually decay and cease to exist over time, just like her name on the sand.

It suggests the limits of humans in the face of the natural world. The ability of time to erase
everything is more powerful than mortal beings and their creations.

Unlike other Elizabethan sonnets, the poem is primarily a dialogue between the speaker and his
beloved. These four lines express the realistic view that the woman holds toward the world. She
understands that nothing is immortal in the fleeting world.

Allowing her to participate actively in the dialogue makes her a dynamic character, and her response
also adds depth to her character. Consequently, it differentiates her from the passive characters of
other Elizabethan sonnet sequences like Daniel. It shows the agency of her character, which is not
present in traditional love sonnets.

9-12 : These lines mark the volta in the poem, a shift from a focus on the fleetingness of the world
and the limitation of man to the power of poetry to preserve her memory. These lines express the
view of the speaker on the idea of mortality.

The speaker presents a way to overcome the mighty time by immortalizing her through poetry. He is
aware of the transitory nature of the world. Therefore, he tells her that insignificant things should be
left to decay. He thinks that ordinary things have little importance compared to her virtues. So, these
things are not worth preserving.

On the other hand, the speaker believes she is worthy of being immortalized. The phrase “glorious
name” reinforces that he views her in an elevated manner. He tells her that he will celebrate her
virtues in a poem, and his verse will eternize her nature. As a result, it will not be affected by time.
People will remember her through his creation. He will not write her name in the sand but in heaven,
signifying a lasting and glorious legacy. Heaven suggests immortality or an everlasting place beyond
the mortal world.

We find the speaker stressing the power of poetry in another sonnet, “Amoretti: Sonnet 27”. The
poem is a comparison between physical beauty and the power of art. He addresses a woman and tells
her beauty will be lost as if she had never lived. It is temporary, but the poem that he is writing will
stand against time and bring a lasting effect.

13,14 : The speaker states that even though death will conquer everything, it cannot do anything to
their love. Even if things and people disappear under the cruel clutches of time, his verse will endure
it. Their love will renew in the following generations. Time cannot erase their existence. They will be
immortal.

Themes
Immortalizing Power of Poetry
In the sonnet “One Day I Wrote her Name”, Edmund Spenser presents poetry as a
means of immortalizing his beloved and her rare virtues.

In the octave, the speaker presents the problem of mortality. As he writes his
ladylove’s name on the sandy sea-shore, it gets washed away by the tides. Then his
mistress stresses on the mortal nature of things. She herself is mortal and will die
some day. So, how can her name remain there forever? It is just a futile effort then to
write her name there.

In the sestet, the speaker suggests a resolution. He proposes to write a poem

glorifying her goodness. Though all other things will fall prey in the hands of death, she
will live on in the readers’ minds through his verse. Thus, the speaker’s beloved can
achieve the height of immortality.

My verse your vertues rare shall eternize,

And in the heavens write your glorious name:

So, we see that the entire poem is framed to present this single important idea that
poetry can be an effective medium to eternalize a mortal thing.

Love

Like all other Amoretti sonnets, the present one is also a love poem. We see the
speaker getting romantic in his ladylove’s presence and writing her name on the sand.
When it is proved to be a vain attempt, he finds a far better idea to immortalize her.
He vows to write her in his verse as a means to eternalize her.

Understandably, the speaker and his beloved are in a genuine love relationship. That is
why the lover is so much concerned with her mortal nature and so eager to immortalize
her. In the last line of the poem, the speaker says –

Our love shall live, and later life renew.

It seems, the lover is not only worried about her beloved but also their love. He wants
to eternalize not only his mistress but also their love. Their pure and unparalleled love
will live on through his verse. And he also wants their love to inspire others (life renew)
in future when there is no love and hope. Thus, the poem sings of love.

Immortality
Immortality is definitely a major theme in Spenser’s poem “One Day I Wrote her
Name”. The mortal nature of human beings and all other things in the world makes the
speaker worried. That is why he is in the lookout for a way out to immortalize his
mistress and their love.

The lady says that the lover is trying in vain to immortalize a mortal thing when he
writes her name on the shore. But the speaker thinks otherwise. According to him,
things can be immortal if they remain in people’s hearts. So, he decides to write about
their love and his mistress in his verse. This way, when death will subdue all other
things, their love will remain in the readers’ minds and will thus achieve immortality.
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Symbols

The Tide/Waves
The waves or tides in the poem “One Day I Wrote her Name” symbolize the passing of
time. Just as the waves erase the evidence of the speaker’s writing by washing the
shoreline, time also destroys human beings and erases their identity.

The lover writes his beloved’s name on the seashore but the waves wash it away. He
writes it again, but in vain. It makes the speaker’s attempt to immortalize his beloved
futile. Similarly, death is inevitable. The speaker can’t stop death from approaching. In
fact, every object in this world, living or non-living, will be erased with the passing of
time.

The name
The speaker writes his mistress’s name on the shore but the waves wash it away twice.
This reminds the lady that she too will be erased from this world like her name getting
washed away. The name becomes a symbol for the beloved herself.

Again, we hear the speaker almost say, “Well, I have a better plan. I’m going to write
your name in my verse then.”

My verse your virtues rare shall eternize,

And in the heavens write your glorious name

Thus, the word ‘name’ is used repeatedly in the poem as a symbol to mean something
more substantial – the beloved and her goodness. It signifies one’s identity.
“One Day, I Wrote Her Name” also follows the Petrarchan sonnet style. It has
fourteen lines and follows the rhyme scheme of abab cdcd efef gg.

As a sonnet, it has two parts: octave and sestet. In the octave, we observe the
problem in the poem. The speaker faces a challenge in preserving his love for
eternity. It is a struggle between a seemingly insignificant individual like him and
the ruthless force of time.

The volta occurs at the beginning of the sestet, where the speaker argues that he
can immortalize her through his poem. It is a counterargument to her argument that
mortal nothing can be immortal. This change of opinion represents a shift from the
transience of things to the power of poetry to immortalize and preserve memory.

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Edmund Spenser was an English poet best known for The Faerie Queene, an epic poem
and fantastical allegory celebrating the Tudor dynasty and Elizabeth I. He is recognized as
one of the premier craftsmen of nascent Modern English verse and is often considered
one of the greatest poets in the English language

He was also the author of The Faerie Queene (William Ponsonby, 1596), a major English
epic, and Amoretti and Epithalamion (William Ponsonby, 1595), a sonnet sequence
dedicated to his second wife, Elizabeth Boyle.

• The Spenserian sonnet was invented by the famous sixteenth-century poet

Edmund Spenser and uses a rhyme scheme of ABAB BCBC CDCD EE.
• Although Spenser is best-known for The Faerie Queene, he also wrote numerous
sonnets, pioneering a new form that is now synonymous with his name.