Sonnet 79


Sonnet 79 is one of 154 sonnets published by the English playwright and poet William Shakespeare in 1609. It is part of the Fair Youth sequence, and the second sonnet of the Rival Poet sequence.

Exegesis

This sonnet continues the discussion of the previous sonnet, Sonnet 78, regarding other poets who also write poems dedicated to the fair youth. Sonnet 79 argues that the other poet deserves no thanks, because the quality of his writing derives from the quality of his subject. The poet claims that earlier he had exclusively had the young man's patronage, or that his verse had exclusively been devoted to the young man's virtue or honor. But now those of his verses that benefited from the young man's grace, are "decayed" because the youth's favors are being spread out and because the muse is not healthy, which is a strange description considering the first line of Sonnet 78: "So oft have I invoked thee for my Muse".
The muse makes room for another poet, or another muse. When the speaker desperately and unexpectedly refers to the rival poet as "thy poet", it is clear that loyalties have shifted. The sestet turns the rival poet's effort to find appropriate metaphors into a materialistic endeavor regarding merely skin-deep attractiveness. The poet suggests a poem by a rival that has little to add, but proclaims the youth is as virtuous as his virtue, his cheek is as lovely as his cheek, and requires no “thanks".

Structure

Sonnet 79 is an English or Shakespearean sonnet, which has three quatrains, followed by a final rhyming couplet. It follows the rhyme scheme ABAB CDCD EFEF GG, and is composed in iambic pentameter, a metre of five feet per line, with two syllables in each foot accented weak/strong. Most of the lines are examples of regular iambic pentameter, including the 2nd line:

 × / × / × / × / × / 
My verse alone had all thy gentle grace;

The 4th line may be scanned with a rightward movement of the first ictus :

× × / / × / × / × / 
And my sick Muse doth give another place.

The meter calls for a 2-syllable pronunciation of "worthier" in the 6th line.