Sonnet 147

E503310

Sonnet 147 is one of William Shakespeare’s later, darker sonnets, in which he portrays love as a destructive, feverish madness.

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Statements (45)

Predicate Object
instanceOf English sonnet
Shakespearean sonnet
poem
addressee Dark Lady NERFINISHED
approximateCompositionPeriod late 16th century
author William Shakespeare NERFINISHED
centralMetaphor love as fever
closingLine For I have sworn thee fair, and thought thee bright,
Who art as black as hell, as dark as night.
collectionPosition among the final sonnets in the Dark Lady sequence
contrasts idealized beauty and moral blackness
light and darkness
reason and passion
countryOfOrigin England
firstPersonSpeaker unreliable lover
form sonnet
hasCoupletFunction delivers final moral and emotional reversal
imagery darkness
disease
fever
hell
madness
language English
literaryMovement Elizabethan literature NERFINISHED
literaryPeriod English Renaissance NERFINISHED
meter iambic pentameter
numberInSequence 147
openingLine My love is as a fever, longing still
partOf Dark Lady sonnets NERFINISHED
Shakespearean sonnets NERFINISHED
portraysBelovedAs dark
morally corrupt
portraysLoveAs diseased
irrational
rhymeScheme ABAB CDCD EFEF GG
theme destructive love
irrational passion
jealousy
loss of reason
madness
moral corruption
tone bitter
dark
despairing
workTitle Sonnet 147 NERFINISHED

Referenced by (1)

Full triples — surface form annotated when it differs from this entity's canonical label.

Sonnets hasPart Sonnet 147