ONE DAY I WROTE
One day the poet wrote the name of her beloved (i.e. Elizabeth Boyle) on the sandy shore of a sea. But the waves rolled in and washed it off. Being least disappointed he wrote her name on the sea-shore a second time. But soon the tide rushed in to reduce the poet’s labour of writing the beloved’s name on the sea-beach to nought.
Seeing this futile effort of the poet to get her name preserved on the sandy shore the ladylove remarks that he tries, in vain, to immortalise a thing that is subject to death. For she will come to decay like the writing on the sea-shore, and her name will also be effaced from the memory of his near and dear ones. (Octave II. 1-8)
ONE DAY I WROTE HER NAME
The poet dismisses his mistress’s observation as unacceptable, and even meaning- less, and observes that mean earthly things, being subject to decay, must turn to dust some day or other, but his ladylove will live a deathless life by being celebrated in his verse. The poet is convinced that his verse shall make her rare excellences eternal, and make her name shine on the firmament of heaven (i.e. eternity). As a result, while decay and death will subjugate all earthly objects, their love as eternised in his verse will defeat death and decay, and will be freshened and renewed as they will advance in years. Age cannot wither their love away.
ONE DAY I WROTE HER NAME
[F] A Critical Appreciation of the Sonnet
The sonnet beginning One day I wrote her name upon the strand is the Sonnet No. 75 in Spenser’s sonnet-sequence Amoretti published in 1591 and celebrating the progress of his love for his second wife Elizabeth Boyle. The poem is charged with the poet’s passionate love for his wife. He is at pains to immortalize her name and his love for her. In order to preserve her name on the elements (sandy sea-shore), he writes her name there.
When the waves roll in to wash away his beloved’s name on the sea-beach, he writes her name a second time, but this time too the pain he takes to preserve her name falls a prey to the onslaught of the sea-waves. He does not agree with his lover’s contention that it is futile to immortalize mortal things like herself, her name and the poet’s passionate devotion to her.
But the poet assures her that he will eternize her and his love for her by celebrating them in his verse. It is his verse which will subjugate death and decay rather than let them subjugate her and his love for her. Spenser’s idea of poetry triumphing over death and decay is similar to Shakespeare’s in his sonnets. In sonnet 18 (couplet) Shakespeare affirms the superiority of verse over death:
“So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.”
Thus the poem One day I wrote her name upon the strand sings of the imortality of love as embodied in verse. It rings with sincerity of emotion, fervour of devotion to the ladylove, and above all, the keen desire to give her a glorious eternal life through verse.
ONE DAY I WROTE HER NAME
The sonnet One day I wrote her name upon the strand combines the conventional (traditional) elements of the Elizabethan (Petrarchan) sonneteering and individual qualities. Spenser’s over-all attitude to his ladylove is Petrarchan: she is not only beau- tiful, but also an embodiment of rare excellences; she is a perfect woman, as perfect as Petrarch’s ladylove conceived to be a goddess.
So the poet wishes to eternize her glorious qualities by his verse, which is in consonance with the poetic convention of the time. He surely equates her with a goddess, because he will “in the hevens wryte your glorious name.” The conventional element is also to be seen in the spirit of the poem. The transience of earthly things which was a common theme of the Elizabethan sonnet has had a conspicuous treatment here. Aware of the mortality of life, the lady laments,
ONE DAY I WROTE HER NAME
“For I my selve shall lyke to this decay,
And eek my name bee wyped out lykewize.”
The grand conventional element that love is not subject to death or decay occurs in the concluding couplet,
ONE DAY I WROTE HER NAME
“Where whenas death shall all the world subdew,
Our love shall live, and later life renew.”
One day i wrote her name upon the strand departs, in some respects, from the sonneteering (i.e. Petrarchan) convention. It reveals the poet’s deep passion of love for Elizabeth Boyle minus the wailings and supplications of the conventional Petrarchan sonnet. The ladylove is no goddess she is aware of the mortality of life, and of the vanity of human efforts to eternize a mortal thing. Spenser’s ladylove is not cruel unlike the traditional love, nor does Spenser think himself his mistress’s vassal, nor is he sandwiched between hope and despair like Petrarch’s lover. He is confident of her love.
ONE DAY I WROTE HER NAME
The form of the sonnet One day I wrote her name upon the strand is Shakespearean, and not Petrarchan. It consists of three quatrains rhyming ABAB, CDCD, EFEF, and concluding with a rhymed couplet GG. There is the rhyme of the last line of each quatrain with the first line of the next quatrain, which contributes to music and melody.
The first quatrain introduces the theme-the poet’s efforts to preserve his beloved’s name against the onslaught of time and tide (i.e. death and decay).
The second quatrain develops the theme by the lady’s observation that every human effort to preserve a mortal thing like a lady’s name is bound to fail. There is a shift in the third quatrain with the poet’s affirmation that though baser things ‘die in dust’, the poet will confer immortality on his ladylove through his verse. The couplet provides a fitting cor.clusion of the arguments in the quatrains. It asserts that love triumphs over death which subjugates all things in the world.
ONE DAY I WROTE HER NAME
The sonnet is a perfect specimen of a lyric. It is characterized by sincerity and intensity of feeling stirred by his deep love for his second, young wife, and music and melody. The images are appropriate, vivid, and amply suggest the theme. The images of waves, tide, dust, prey, subdue suggest the transience of man’s life on earth and triumph of death and decay on earth. The image of heaven suggests iramortality. The images are, however, mostly conventional.
