SONNET 60 BY WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
HISTORICAL CONTEXT AND SUMMARY
‘Sonnet 60,’ also known as ‘Like as the waves make towards the pebbled shore,’ is
number 60 of 154 sonnets that Shakespeare wrote over his lifetime. It is part of the
prolonged Fair Youth sequence of sonnets. These sonnets are devoted to a young,
beautiful man whose identity remains unknown to this day. The speaker spends the
majority of the poem using personification to describe time as a force that gives and
then takes away. It chooses to destroy all of that which it once created. It leads even the
best of nature into destruction, corrupting a pure brow with wrinkles. In the last lines,
the speaker says that no matter what time tries to do his writings are going to survive
forever and therefore so too will the youth’s beauty. It explores themes of time, youth,
age, and writing.
RHYTHM AND METER
‘Sonnet 60’ by William Shakespeare is a fourteen-line poem that is contained within
one stanza, in the form that has become synonymous with the poet’s name. The English
or Shakespearean sonnet is made up of three quatrains, or sets of four lines, and one
concluding couplet, or set of two rhyming lines. The poem follows a consistent rhyme
scheme that conforms to the pattern of ABAB CDCD EFEF GG and it is written in
iambic pentameter (the first is unstressed and the second stressed. It sounds something
like da-DUM, da-DUM). There is an exception in this particular poem, namely the use
of “brow” and “mow” in the third quatrain. These are half-rhymes.
In the couplet, often bring with them a turn or volta in the poem. They’re sometimes
used to answer a question posed in the previous twelve lines, shift the perspective, or
even change speakers. In this case, the turn declares that all the powers of time are
useless in the face of the poet’s own verse.
LITERARY DEVICES
Shakespeare makes use of several poetic techniques in ‘Sonnet 60’. These include but
are not limited to alliteration, personification, and enjambment. The first of these,
alliteration, is the use of the same sound at the beginning of multiple words. For
example, “Crawls,” “crowned,” and “crooked” in lines six and seven as well as
“glory” and “gift” in lines seven and eight.
Personification occurs when a poet imbues a non-human creature or object with human
characteristics. In this case, Shakespeare uses personification to depict “Time” as a
being with the power to choose to destroy. It has a nature, its own agency, and power.
Enjambment is another prevalent technique in much of Shakespeare’s poetry. It occurs
when a line is cut off before its natural stopping point. Enjambment forces a reader
down to the next line, and the next, quickly. One has to move forward in order to
comfortably resolve a phrase or sentence. For example, the transition between lines nine
and ten.
ANALYSIS
Lines 1-4
In the first lines of ‘Sonnet 60,’ the speaker begins with a clear and beautiful description
of time. He uses a metaphor to compare the progression of time to the movement of
waves “towards the pebbled shore”. Life is fast and there is never enough time to do
everything that one wants to, these lines allude to. The moments move as the waves do,
in and out, one replacing the next. Their efforts together move one’s life forward
towards its inevitable conclusion.
Lines 5-8
In the next four lines, the speaker describes “Nativity” and everything that has ever
been born. None of it stays young or new forever. It all “Crawls” through time to
“maturity” where it finds its light and peak. There are numerous obstacles to that peak
that all living beings face. There are “Crooked eclipses” that try to fight against “his
glory”. Time, which was once a friend carrying one on towards the penultimate
moments of their life becomes an adversary.
Lines 9-14
In the third quatrain, the speaker adds that it is time’s job to destroy the beauty of youth
that it once bestowed and create wrinkles on “beauty’s brow”. The perfect smoothness
of youth is corrupted by “parallels”.
Time even “Feeds on the rarities of nature’s truth,” the most beautiful things in
nature fall victim to the power of time. There is nothing it won’t touch with its
“scythe”. These lines use imagery to refer to the figure of death as a grim reaper.
In the last two lines, the speaker concludes by saying his verses will last into the future.
They will continue to praise the youth’s worth no matter what time tries to do.
