A reading of Shakespeare’s sonnet 14
William Shakespeare’s Sonnet 14 is another ‘Procreation Sonnet’, which urges the Fair Youth, the addressee of the early Sonnets, to marry and sire an heir. What follows is a short summary and analysis of Sonnet 14, which takes astrology as its (rejected) trope, and begins with the line ‘Not from the stars do I my judgement pluck’. Let’s go star-gazing with the Bard…
Not from the stars do I my judgement pluck;
And yet methinks I have Astronomy,
But not to tell of good or evil luck,
Of plagues, of dearths, or seasons’ quality;
Nor can I fortune to brief minutes tell,
Pointing to each his thunder, rain and wind,
Or say with princes if it shall go well
By oft predict that I in heaven find: