Need some help with sonnets

[dyszol]

hi guys, i'm just finishing my first semester at university and a problem i have is English Literature, to be more specific - sonnets
could any of you tell me what are these sonnets about (in general)?

"My Galley Charged with Forgetfulness" by Thomas Wyatt
"Love That Doth Reign and Live Within My Thought" by Henry Howard
"Amoretti" ,I, LXXV- Edmund Spenser
Shakespeare: XVIII, CXXX

for any help i solemnly thank you

[Il Penseroso]

You should post the poems and your thoughts and particular lines you are having trouble understanding.

You'll rarely get a reply to such requests on homework unless you are willing to meet halfway and give some of your ideas.

[Dark Muse]

Shakespeare: XVIII, CXXX

These two sonnets both have a very smillar theme. They are sonnets about love, in which the woman's beauty is being compared to nature and the beautiful aspects of nature. And how when one is in love, the woman they are in love with might appear to out shine the very sun.

They are very romantic sonnets filled with sweet verse.

[dyszol]

Il Penseroso, well you're right, BUT my problem is to get general idea of these particular sonnets and not to analyze single verses

Dark Muse thank you a lot for this description, it was very helpful and now i have one concern less

[Dark Muse]

Glad I could help

[Il Penseroso]

have you read them? what do you get out of them?

[dyszol]

My Galley Charged with Forgetfulness - it's about a love hard to maintain/achieve?

Amoretti 75 is about men who believes in immortal love within verses (even death will not terminate their love); a tide is his 'oponent', trying to wash out the name of his love, narrator isn't sceptic

is my guess correct?

[Il Penseroso]

it sounds like a tide is the "enemy" in both cases. sort of love against the elements or properation of time

what do you see different in the conclusions? and perhaps why?

[dyszol]

yes tide is the enemy in both cases, in first - galley represents love (love of the man) that faces tides (obstacles, even great difficulties), and the lady ignores him/maybe doesn't even know about his love
ps. do the stars represent eyes of the woman?

and in 75 - tide seems to be less threatening, cause narrator sees his love already victorious?

that's how i interpret these two, but i may be wrong (it's even more than sure i am wrong ;p ), and now i'd like to ask you for your interpretation

[Il Penseroso]

I would see the stars more from an astrological perspective, seen as controlling the fate of those beneath. so when he says, "Drownèd is reason that should me consort, / And I remain despairing of the port" he could be complaining of a lack of control, his reasoning capacity is to no avail as he is swept along by emotion/passion. I can see how you might see that a female is symbolically present, though i don't think that's necessary (it's most definitely not wrong though). i would see the female as perhaps the tide itself ("my lord"), maybe rather than ignoring him


in the spenser the tide is given a masculine gender, and the female has a definite interaction with the lover/poem writer

[dyszol]

Il Penseroso your description was also very helpful, now i think i understand these things a lot better than before
i have just one last question regarding 'Love that doth Reign and Live within my Thought' (this one is most difficult for me to comprehend); am i right thinking that it's a story about man loving shy and passive in his regards woman? his love will never be fulfilled?

Yet from my lord shall not my foot remove:
Sweet is the death that taketh end by love.
does this mean he will keep trying till death?

[wonderingworker]

I don't understand the what the different aspects of love are from the sonnets 1, 35, and of the work from Edmund Spenser