Sonnet 91


Sonnet 91 is one of 154 sonnets written by the English playwright and poet William Shakespeare. It's a member of the Fair Youth sequence, in which the poet expresses his love towards a young man.

Paraphrase

Some people delight in their noble ancestry; some in their abilities; some in their wealth or strength; some in their hunting animals. But I don't take joy in any of these things because I have something even better: To me your love is better than noble ancestry, wealth, expensive clothes or hunting animals. And as long as I have you, I feel prouder than anyone else. But I am also cursed in only a single thing: that if you stop loving me, I will become the most wretched person.

Structure

Sonnet 91 is an English or Shakespearean sonnet. The English sonnet has three quatrains, followed by a final rhyming couplet. It follows the typical rhyme scheme of the form, ABAB CDCD EFEF GG, and is composed in iambic pentameter, a type of poetic metre based on five pairs of metrically weak/strong syllabic positions. The 11th line exemplifies a regular iambic pentameter:

× / × / × / × / × / 
Of more delight than hawks and horses be;

The sonnet abounds with metrical variants. Lines 5 and 7 have a final extrametrical syllable or feminine ending. Line 2 exhibits both an initial and a mid-line reversal, two of at least nine such reversals in the poem.

 / × × / / × × / × / 
Some in their wealth, some in their bodies' force,

Both lines 8 and 9 may be scanned to exhibit the rightward movement of the third ictus :

× / × / × × / / × / 
All these I better in one general best.
 × / × / × × / / × / 
Thy love is better than high birth to me,

Interpretations