Question

Read Spenser’s "Sonnet 75.”

One day I wrote her name upon the strand;
But came the waves, and washed it away:
Again, I wrote it with a second hand;
But came the tide, and made my pains his prey.
Vain man, said she, that dost in vain assay
A mortal thing so to immortalize;
For I myself shall like to this decay,
And eke my name be wiped out likewise.
Not so, quoth I, let baser things devise
To die in dust, but you shall live by fame:
My verse your virtues rare shall eternize,
And in the heavens write your glorious name.
Where, when as death shall all the world subdue,
Our love shall live, and later life renew.

Now read the lines from Shakespeare’s "Sonnet 18.”

Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer’s lease hath all too short a date;
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimm'd;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance or nature’s changing course untrimm'd;
But thy eternal summer shall not fade,
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st;
Nor shall death brag thou wander’st in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou grow’st:
So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

Which central idea is shared by both sonnets?

A) The memory of beauty cannot outlast death.
B) Time erases beauty in nature and people.
C) Writing about people serves to immortalize them.
D) The changes in nature are like the changes in people.

(B is incorrect)

Answer 1

In my opinion, the correct answer is C) Writing about people serves to immortalize them. It is the central idea of both sonnets. Spencer is aware of the "vanity" of his attempt to immortalize a mortal thing, that is, his beloved. But he nevertheless wants to do it, knowing that a poem about their love will make this love immortal and alive, many ages after they are both gone. Shakespeare also seeks to tear his beloved off from mortal fate by writing about her. All beautiful things eventually fade out and die, he says; but poetry transcends this life and its limitations, so it's the only way for the two of them and their love to live eternally.

Both Spencer and Shakespeare think highly of their loves. But there is one thing that outshines even love, and that is poetry. It is like a window from which we can at least peek into eternity, if we are not able to live in it.