Sonnet 82

A Short Analysis of Sidney’s Astrophil and Stella 82: ‘Nymph of the garden where all beauties be’

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By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)

Sir Philip Sidney’s sonnets often shut closed neatly and satisfyingly with a snap. They build towards their conclusion, and although Sidney uses the Petrarchan sonnet form (which doesn’t usually conclude with a rhyming couplet), his last lines tend to have the ring of finality about them, ending his poem with a bang rather than a whimper. ‘Nymph of the garden where all beauties be’, which is the 82nd sonnet in his sequence Astrophil and Stella, is a fine example of how well Sidney took the relatively new sonnet form (in English) and made it his own.

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A Short Analysis of Shakespeare’s Sonnet 82: ‘I grant thou wert not married to my Muse’

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By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)

‘I grant thou wert not married to my Muse’ is the 82nd sonnet in Shakespeare’s sequence of 154 sonnets charting the romantic drama that’s played out between the poet, the Fair Youth, the Dark Lady, and the rival poet. In this poem, Shakespeare genteelly criticises his contemporaries who excessively praise beauty in their poems, arguing that when a poet is writing about the beauty of the Fair Youth, Shakespeare’s way – telling the truth and speaking plainly – is much more effective. Before we offer some words of analysis of Sonnet 82, here is the poem.

I grant thou wert not married to my Muse,
And therefore mayst without attaint o’erlook
The dedicated words which writers use
Of their fair subject, blessing every book.
Thou art as fair in knowledge as in hue,
Finding thy worth a limit past my praise;
And therefore art enforced to seek anew
Some fresher stamp of the time-bettering days.

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