Sonnet 77

Shakespeare's 77th sonnet is the half-way point of the book of 154 sonnets. The poet here presents the idea of the young man taking on the role of poet and writing about himself. This sonnet makes use of the rhetorical device termed correlatio, which involves a listing and correlating of significant objects, and which was perhaps overused in English sonnets. The objects here are a mirror, a time piece and a notebook, each representing a way towards self-improvement for the young man as poet.

Structure

Sonnet 77 is an English or Shakespearean sonnet. The English sonnet contains three quatrains, followed by a final rhyming couplet. It follows the rhyme scheme ABAB CDCD EFEF GG, and is composed in iambic pentameter lines, a type of poetic metre in which each line as five feet, each foot has two syllables, and each syllable is accented weak/strong. Most of the lines are regular iambic pentameter including the first:


 × / × / × / × / × / 
Thy glass will show thee how thy beauties wear