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Sonnet 30, "When to the sessions of sweet silent thought"
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William Shakespeare
(1564 - 1616)
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William Shakespeare (1564-1616) was born in Stratford-upon-Avon, the son of a prosperous merchant, and received his early education at Stratford Grammar School. In 1582, he married Anne Hathaway and over the next twenty years established himself as a professional actor and playwright in London. Shakespeare’s sonnets, of which there are 154, were probably written in the 1590s but were first published in 1609. The fourteen lines of the Shakespearean sonnet fall into three quatrains and a couplet rhyming abab cdcd efef gg. They hint at a story involving a young man, a "dark lady," and the poet himself, together with a "rival poet." Sonnet 30 expresses a variation on a familiar theme: the encroachment of time, loss, and death, and the undying power of love and friendship to resist these devastations.
Web Destinations
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University of Toronto:
Visit this site on Shakespeare's poetry, including annotations for Sonnet 30.
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Shakespeare on the Internet (Biography, Resources, Etc.):
Visit this site for a biography and other resources on Shakespeare.
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Sonnet Central:
Read sonnets by Shakespeare and others at this site.
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Definition:
To learn what sonnets are, visit this site.
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