Sonnet 39 is one of 154 sonnets written by the English playwright and poet William Shakespeare. It is a member of the Fair Youth sequence, in which the poet expresses his love towards a young man.
Sonnet 39 is an English or Shakespearean sonnet, composed of three quatrains and a final rhyming couplet for a total of fourteen lines. It follows the rhyme scheme ABAB CDCD EFEF GG. It is written in iambic pentameter, a metre based on five pairs of syllables accented weak/strong. The first line is one example of a line of regular iambic pentameter:
<pre style="border:none;background-color:transparent;margin-left:1em"> ÃÂ / ÃÂ / ÃÂ / ÃÂ / ÃÂ / O, how thy worth with manners may I sing </pre>
The fifth line can be scanned with an initial reversal:
<pre style="border:none;background-color:transparent;margin-left:1em"> / ÃÂ ÃÂ / x / ÃÂ / ÃÂ / Even for this, let us divided live, (39.5) </pre>
Sonnet 39 continues with sonnets 35âÂÂ37 the theme of the poet and the young man being united in love as one person and the suggestion of being separated (twain): âÂÂHow can I praise you properly when we are so combined? I would be praising, in a sense, myself.â The poet suggests that a separation will help him praise the young man while thinking of his admirable aspects in absence. Beginning with line 9 the poet addresses not the youth, but âÂÂabsenceâÂÂ: âÂÂOh absence, you would be torment, except that you provide a pleasant opportunity to think on love, and, absence, you teach one to be not solitary but to be two, by praising the young man where I am, though he continues to be elsewhere (hence).âÂÂ