Poetry · GCSE English Literature
Sonnet 29
GCSE Shakespeare revision: disgrace and envy, “bootless cries” to heaven, the turn at “yet, when… Haply I think on thee,” kingship in memory, and comparison with Love’s Philosophy or When We Two Parted.
He wishes he were anyone else — then remembers one person’s love and suddenly would not trade places with kings.
The important bits
What you need to know
- 1
Sonnet form is the argument: fourteen lines, volta at “Yet, when… Haply I think on thee” — despair pivots to wealth.
- 2
Opening eight lines catalogue isolation: outcast state, bootless cries, envy of men more hopeful, featured like them, desiring their art and scope.
- 3
“Sullen earth” and “outcast state” make mood physical — the speaker feels exiled from fortune and society before love enters.
- 4
The turn is not a new topic but a rescue: thinking on the beloved’s “sweet love remembered” revalues everything.
- 5
“Like to the lark at break of day arising / From sullen earth” — bird imagery lifts the speaker from the ground envy pinned him to.
- 6
“Scorn to change my state with kings” reverses the opening envy. Love does not add money; it changes what state means.
- 7
The poem is inward: no kiss, no scene — memory alone transforms. That interiority contrasts with Shelley’s outward nature argument.
- 8
Pair with Love’s Philosophy for love as union vs love as inward kingship, or When We Two Parted for ended love versus love that still elevates.
Quotations worth analysing
Short evidence. Real method.
“When, in disgrace with fortune and men’s eyes, / I all alone beweep my outcast state”
Disgrace is social and financial — fortune and men’s eyes. “Beweep” makes grief audible. The sonnet opens in full self-pity before the turn will shame it.
“Yet, when… Haply I think on thee, and then my state, / Like to the lark at break of day arising / From sullen earth, sings hymns at heaven’s gate;”
“Yet” is the hinge. Lark from earth to heaven mirrors the speaker’s emotional flight. Hymns at heaven’s gate — love makes devotion, not only comfort.
“For thy sweet love remembered such wealth brings / That then I scorn to change my state with kings.”
Remembered love is wealth that outranks crowns. “Scorn” answers the earlier envy — kings are now beneath him, not above.
Go deeper
The sonnet turn as rescue
GCSE essays must name the volta. Before it: envy, isolation, wishing to be someone else. After: lark, hymns, scorning kings. The structure is the meaning — love does not solve fortune’s disgrace in the world, it revalues the speaker’s inner state. Compare Love’s Philosophy: Shelley needs the addressee’s kiss to complete nature’s law; Shakespeare needs only memory. Methods: sonnet turn and bird ascent versus rhyming quatrains of natural pairing. Judgement: Shakespeare’s love is private and sufficient; Shelley’s is public and unanswered.
Go deeper
Wealth without money
The speaker envies men with “scope” and “art” — talent and range. Love’s “wealth” is not literal riches (contrast the disgrace with fortune). Examiners reward you for holding both economies: worldly failure, emotional kingship. Pair When We Two Parted carefully: Byron’s speaker still cares that others do not know the affair; Shakespeare’s speaker escapes comparison with kings entirely. Both use memory, but Byron’s is bitter and social; Shakespeare’s is ecstatic and inward.
Go deeper
How to write the comparative paragraph
Model: Both Shakespeare and Shelley present love as transformative, but Shakespeare’s transformation happens in thought after envy while Shelley argues from nature toward a kiss still withheld. Quote lark from “sullen earth” against fountains mingling with rivers. End: inward sufficiency versus outward demand. Context: sonnet tradition of idealised love — one clause, then back to the turn.
See the idea in action
Question: Compare how poets present the power of love in Sonnet 29 and one other poem. Thesis: Both Shakespeare and Shelley show love overturning a miserable state, but Shakespeare’s speaker is lifted by remembered love alone while Shelley builds from nature’s pairing toward a kiss still denied. Evidence: “scorn to change my state with kings” versus “If thou kiss not me?”; lark from sullen earth versus mingling fountains. Judgement: Shakespeare finds completeness in memory; Shelley finds incompleteness in refusal.
Exam technique
Turn knowledge into marks
Mark the “Yet” — essays that treat the sonnet as uniformly miserable miss half the argument and the kingship line.
Common mistakes
Do not give these marks away
- 01
Ignoring the volta and describing only misery.
- 02
Treating “wealth” as literal money without linking to emotional kingship.
- 03
Pairing with romantic poems without noting Shakespeare’s love is memory, not scene.
What mainly changes at the sonnet’s turn?
AThe speaker becomes a king in real life
BRemembered love transforms envy and isolation into emotional wealth and scorn for kings’ state
CThe addressee arrives and kisses the speaker
DThe speaker stops believing in God
Show the answer
Remembered love transforms envy and isolation into emotional wealth and scorn for kings’ state. The lark image and closing couplet reverse the opening disgrace — inner state, not fortune, changes.
Quick questions
If this is the bit you searched
Is this the same speaker as in the plays?
Treat it as a constructed sonnet voice — “the speaker” — not as biography of Shakespeare the man.
Best pairs?
Love's Philosophy, When We Two Parted, Neutral Tones (contrast elevation vs drain).
Why a lark?
Bird rises from earth to heaven at dawn — mirrors the speaker’s ascent from sullen mood to hymns.
What is “outcast state”?
Social and emotional exile — disgraced with fortune and men’s eyes. The opening wound the turn cures.