Spenser’s Sonnet 75

Spenser’s Sonnet 75 exemplifies the glory and splendour of love and conforms to Spenser’s poetical theory. It is from the sonnet sequence titled Amoretti. The poet deeply in love with his lady-love, inscribes her name upon the sandy shore. Spenser writes the only name on his mind. People usually write their own names down. A name is one’s most priced possession, and the hallmark of one’s identity. However, he regards the name of his beloved as his most priced possession and it fills his thought process completely. “I” is the centre of Elizabethan poetry: this is what makes the lyrics of the period intimately personal and highly individualistic. The poet replaces his self here by his love.

The poet inscribes the name again and again on the strand, but it gets washed by the tides. The poet likens this to the hunter trying to get his prey, and losing it again and again. It essays the ‘attempt’ to immortalize her in the sands of time. She refutes his theory of poetry and echoes that it is futile to make her immortal. That would amount to placing her on an equal footing with God which would be inappropriate. Great material things and civilizations disintegrate with the ravages of time .Likewise, as my name is erased now, my body will be wiped out later.

On the contrary, the poet believes that the poem he pens will be eternalized with time, and along with it so will his subject be immortal. The poet states that she supposed otherwise. Her beauty will fade with time, but his poetry will capture it without letting Time tarnish its delicacy. The poet declares that though Death conquers everyone, as long as there is life on earth and poetry is still read… his profound and enduring love for her and her virtue will be eternalized.