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William ShakespeareSonnet 60
Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1609A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Literary Devices
Form, Meter, and Rhyme
The 14-line poem is divided into three quatrains (four-line stanzas) and a concluding couplet. The lyric sonnet follows the classic abab cdcd efef gg rhyme scheme and is written largely in iambic pentameter, with five pairs of unstressed and stressed syllables per line. A great example of the use of regular iambic pentameter is Line 13: “And yet to times in hope my verse shall stand.” However, one of the most interesting features of the poem is that Shakespeare regularly switches out the iamb (daDUM) for other meters. For instance, he sometimes begins lines with an inverted iamb, or a trochee, where a stressed syllable leads to an unstressed one. This can be seen, among other instances, in Line 6, which begins with the trochee “Crawls to.” Some critics believe even the opening line can be said to begin with a trochee, with the stress on “Like,” though others scan the line as “Like as.”
These changes in meter not only keep the rhyme from becoming monotonous, but they also embody the themes and image of the line. For instance, if the first line is scanned as “Like as the waves make towards the pebbled shore,” a trochee is followed by an iamb, which in turn is followed by another trochee; thus, the movement of the feet in the line parallels the curve of the wave it is describing. This complex synergy between form and content is achieved in other ways too. For example, the flow of the lines is quicker in the first stanza, mimicking the rush of the crashing waves. Spoken aloud, the lines fly off; the words themselves contain fewer syllables than in the following stanzas.
The second quatrain contains an abundance of opening trochees, which slow down the poem’s flow, forcing the reader to consider the diabolical nature of time. Note to this effect the use of long syllables at the beginning of lines, such as “crawls to” (Line 6) and “crooked eclipses” (Line 7). The poet uses more words with complex syllabic sounds, such as “nativity” (Line 5) and “maturity” (Line 6), in contrast with the simpler “waves” (Line 1), “shore” (Line 1), “hasten” (Line 2), and “end” (Line 2) of the first quatrain. This continues in the third quatrain as well, but begins to reverse in the ending couplet, with “praising” (Line 14) the longest drawn-out sound. Since the sonnet is achieving its resolution, it quickens again, yet the flow of the words is gentler than the repetitive insistence of the first few lines.
The rhyme scheme is consistent, with almost all the lines ending on a full (when the words rhyme perfectly) rhyme, such as “light” and “fight” and “crown’d” and “confound” in Lines 5-9. The only instance of a half rhyme is “brow” and “mow” in Lines 10-12, though it can be argued that the instance is of a dialectical full rhyme, where the pronunciation of the words is identical in dialect. Few lines in the poem are end-stopped, with enjambment (clauses flowing over lines) the norm. An example of enjambed lines is “Time doth transfix the flourish set on youth / And delves the parallels in beauty's brow” (Lines 9-10). Along with the switching of meters, the enjambment acts to break up the poem’s regular rhyme and introduce variation.
Alliteration and Assonance
Alliteration is a prominent figure of speech in Sonnet 60, with the poet using emphasized sounds to illustrate the rhythms of time, sometimes relentless and sometimes excruciatingly slow, and at other times abrupt. In the first quatrain, the “w” sound is repeated in “Each changing place with that which goes before” (Line 3), indicating that just like the interchangeable sounds, the minutes of life can replace each other easily. Thus, the poet uses alliteration to emphasize the monotony and relentless progress of time. In the second stanza, the alliteration becomes more pronounced, as if to illustrate its theme of time being punished. To show how the bloom of human life—its youth—is short-lived, preceded by slow childhood and an even slower old age, the poet uses the following alliteration:
Nativity, once in the main of light,
Crawls to maturity, wherewith being crown'd,
Crooked eclipses 'gainst his glory fight,
And Time that gave doth now his gift confound (Lines 5-8).
The resonant and emphatic “cr” sound in “crawls,” “crowned,” and “crooked” add a menacing edge to the poem, indicating that life’s decay moves in tandem with its bloom. The alliterative “c” sound continues in “eclipses,” carrying forth the warning of the previous lines. In the next set of alliterative sounds, the hard “g” is emphasized. Occurring in conjunction with words like “fight” and “confound,” the alliteration of “gainst,” “glory,” and “gave” evokes the image of toil and suffering. Life seems like a hard struggle to seize a few moments of glory from the relentless march of time. Other notable examples of alliteration in the poem are “Time doth transfix” (Line 9), the hard “t” sound fixing the immutable nature of time, and “beauty’s brow” (Line 10), with the lush “b” drawing attention to the extravagance of beauty.
The poem also relies on assonance, wherein similar vowel sounds are repeated at close intervals to amplify rhythm and meaning. For instance, consider the opening quatrain:
Like as the waves make towards the pebbled shore,
So do our minutes hasten to their end;
Each changing place with that which goes before,
In sequent toil all forwards do contend (Lines 1-4).
The long “a” sound is repeated here (“waves” and “make” in Line 1, “hasten” in Line 2, and “changing” and “place” in Line 3), mimicking the rhythmic slow swell of waves. The long vowel sounds of “shore” and “before” (Lines 1, 3) and “towards” and “forwards” (Lines 1, 4) achieve a similar effect.
Metaphor, Simile, and Personification
The sonnet begins with a simile, where waves moving toward the “pebbled shore” (Line 1) are compared to human moments that “hasten to an end” (Line 2). Both the ephemerality of the waves—dying against the rocky shore—and their cyclical rhythmic motion are likened to human time. The idea the simile conveys is that moments are temporary, dying instantly, but their passage itself is repetitive, since each is “changing place with that which goes before” (Line 3). This striking simile gives way to an extended metaphor—an implicit comparison that evolves over several lines—in the second quatrain.
The sun’s daily cycle is implicitly compared to a human life. Infancy or nativity is the “main of light” (Line 5) or a sea of light; the comparison here is to the sun rising over the sea, its light reflected in the waters. At this time in life, light seems in abundance and is the main (a pun on main-as-sea) part of existence. The infant sun “crawls” (Line 6) up the sky to maturity as day progresses and is crowned with rays at high noon. This is a metaphor for the flow of a human life over childhood and youth, youth being the kingship or apex of a lifespan. However, the metaphor shows that all is not perfect, either with the sun or the life of a human. The sun has to crawl to maturity, the verb implying slowness and struggle, and once crowned, it has to fight “crooked eclipses” (Line 7). Thus, once a human grows up to the kingship of youth, they have to fight the enemies or eclipses of suffering and ageing.
Shakespeare uses personification in several instances in the sonnet. In the second quatrain, the sun is personified, implicitly compared to a crawling child, a crowned youth, and an embattled youth. Time is personified too, as someone “that gave doth now his gift confound” (Line 8). Time is depicted through different personas in the third quatrain, first as a cruel authority figure, then as a talented but fickle gardener who builds and mars the garden of youth, and finally as the grim reaper himself. Time is now death personified, and “nothing stands but for his scythe to mow” (Line 12).
The reference to death’s scythe is an allusion to the grim reaper, a personified image of death that became popular in Europe in the 14th century during the plague epidemic. Death was personified as a hooded figure carrying a scythe, a farmer’s reaping blade, come to “reap” or cut down life. Sonnet 60 contains other allusions as well; time feeding on people could be an allusion to Kronos in Greek mythology, the titan who ate his children. The crowned sun fighting eclipses is possibly a biblical allusion to Jesus wearing a crown of thorns and suffering on the cross.
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By William Shakespeare
