MODEL—Sonnet 1 Close Reading Kit: Glossing & Analysis
Student Name
ENG 207
Dr. Myers
Draft—Sonnet Close Reading Kit
Word count
Date due
Sonnet 1: Substantial
From fairest creatures we desire increase,
That thereby beauty’s rose might never die,
But as the riper should by time decease,
His tender heir might bear his memory:
But thou, contracted to thine own bright eyes,
5
Feed’st thy light’s flame with self-substantial fuel,
Making a famine where abundance lies,
Thyself thy foe, to thy sweet self too cruel.
Thou that art now the world’s fresh ornament,
And only herald to the gaudy spring,
Within thine own bud buriest thy content,
And, tender churl, mak’st waste in niggarding:
Pity the world, or else this glutton be,
To eat the world’s due, by the grave and thee.
10
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Gloss 1: Substantial
Substantial has several meanings related to physical size and strength as well as to the
metaphorical strengths of value, character, and reputation. It can refer to an ample and
nourishing meal, a solid or well-built structure, a strong person, anything considerably large,
anything of real significance, anything that is reliable, anything that is effective or worthwhile. It
can refer to a well-respected, honorable person, sometimes associated with wealth or social
standing.
When referring to writing or language in general or argumentation and reasoning
specifically, substantial can describe the gravity or importance of a statement, one that is
especially significant, or one that is uncontested. Insofar as they are actions, substantial writing
and reasoning can be important or grave because they are forceful, effective, and thorough,
suggesting that language—as is evident in effective argumentation—can have considerable realworld consequences.
Substantial also has meanings related to the nature or essence of a thing. It can refer to
the literal tissue or material substance of a living thing. It can refer to the most important or
essential feature—one that is inherent rather than a feature that is either accidental or an
purported to belong to the thing in question. In other words, the substantial feature is inseparable
from the thing itself, not Indeed, something that is only purported cannot be substantiated,
proven, nourished, made real, or given bodily form. Substantial here develops the definitions of
forceful language and argumentation by suggesting that this kind of language has some kind of
essential quality that gives it form and that cannot be separated from the force it exerts.
Substantial can mean anything that is, anything that exists, anything that subsists by itself,
anything that has a corporeal form. Substantial things are real and true. They are not illusory or
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only superficially true. This meaning complicates the meanings related to value, character, and
reputation because all three depend on their being purported, attributed by others to the thing in
question, removing from the thing itself its essential quality or value—from which it could not be
separated were it substantial, that is, inseparable—since the essential quality is substantiated
only by others, by the judgements they make and repeat, by the rumors and stories they tell, and
by the persistence of all of this in their cultural memory.
(384 words)
Gloss 2: Fair
Fair is a word we think we know, but the OED bears out contradictory definitions across
four separate entries that include forms spanning four parts of speech: verb, adverb, adjective,
and noun.
Most unexpected for modern readers is the verb form, to fair.1 This form of the word
appears to be based on the noun since it dates back to Old English (OE) but the noun was
available first in early Old English (eOE) and the meanings in the two parts of speech clearly
overlap. In one fourteenth-century sense of the verb, to fair means to purify or to clean. This
meaning became immediately obsolete, but it is possible that it could have been known by wellread early moderns like Shakespeare. The meanings that persisted from Old English into the
seventeenth century have to do with making something beautiful, particularly on the outside in
terms of decorating, adorning, or embellishing.
As an adverb, fair has similar senses related to beauty and other kinds of culturally
determined value judgements, and is mostly the same as the adverbial form modern people are
1
Although we retain the verb to fair in senses related to the weather clearing up and to the smoothing of vehicles to
reduce drag, these were not available for Shakespeare.
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more likely to use, fairly. It can mean beautifully, nobly, and finely. Relatedly, fair has to do
with being a good person who is friendly and treats people well, whether that is civilly,
courteously, kindly, or respectfully. All of these could be considered just, right, honorable,
suitable, appropriate, or fitting, all of which are themselves senses of fair. Legitimate is the sense
that we have all meant any time we claim that something is not fair. This sense is related to the
idea that what is fair is what is moderately, reasonably, carefully, or gently done, without haste
or force. Fair also refers to what is precisely, exactly, or accurately done as well as to what is
completely or thoroughly done. However, this precision disappears when we use fair to
adequate, as in fairly well (well enough). Finally, fair for early moderns also had something
specific to do with language. In addition to fair referring to something that is clearly or plainly
stated, it identifies a written copy as legible and neat, without correction or alternation. Fair in
this sense is pitted against foul: foul papers are the rough drafts, but a fair copy is the final
manuscript.
As an adjective, fair continues with some of the senses available in the adverbial and
verbal forms. It can mean beautiful, attractive, pleasant, agreeable, delightful, elegant, eloquent,
favorable, mild, benign, gentle, pliable. It can designate something that is just, proper, honest,
honorable, or reasonable. Fair can refer to a kind of generosity, or a considerable amount. It can
mean unobstructed, clear, plainly visible, distinct, bright, pure, unsullied. Fair can mean free
from roughness, irregularity, decay, disease, or blemish Fair can refer to one’s chances of
success or good fortune or the equitable distribution thereof. Fair can mean light-complected or
light-haired (as opposed to dark). In addition to these positive meanings, fair can refer to their
falsification: something that appears to be attractive but is intended to deceive or conceal
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something else. Similarly, fair can mean insincere or flattering. The span of meanings creates
ambiguity (discussed below).
In a seemingly unrelated sense nonetheless available to Shakespeare, fair has a noun form
tied to an event: a fair, of course, is a customary, periodic gathering of people where commerce,
competitions, and other entertainments take place. It connotes frivolity, time and money wasted
on passing enjoyment, and it is tied to other early modern pastimes, including attending the
theater on afternoons when one ought to be working. In its commercial sense, a fair suggests a
place to make a profit at another’s expense because it is a place where one buys enjoyment rather
than something useful or enduring. This noun form resonates with some of the meanings asserted
in the other parts of speech, but complicates them with the addition of commercial use and abuse
as well as with the nod toward the means by which Shakespeare makes his living.
In the superlative fairest, the senses of fair intensify to their most extreme limits.
(710 words)
Riper
At the root of riper are the related noun, adjective, and pronoun senses of ripe. Ripe
continues the connotations of extremity available in fair. Ripe describes something that is fit for
a purpose. It can refer to the peak of development or to its final stage, thereby suggesting the
harvesting and decay of produce, the animal fit to be killed for food, the birth of a fully formed
infant and human aging and dying. Ripe also suggests sexual maturity. It refers, then, to the fully
mature, the fully informed, the thoroughly qualified, prepared, and experienced person. It can
describe a person’s complexion as well as their full, red lips. It can refer to something amply
endowed. Ripe can also describe something that is thoroughly investigated or pondered.
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Reasonably, riper describes something that is more ripe than something else as well as to
something that either becomes ripe or causes something else to ripen (a ripener). Insofar as it
refers to ripeness, riper may mean one that is more mature, more reasonable, more experienced,
readier to reproduce, or older than another. Riper suggests a comparable fairness insofar as fair
excludes decay and death, but complicates this by retaining the sense of ripeness as decay and
death—which the final word of this line (decease) reasserts. Oddly, riper is also used as a noun
to identify to a plunderer, a robber, or a reaver—someone who takes something that does not
belong to them, often by violent means. However, a reaver is also known as a reaper—someone
who harvests. Thanks to that fact that spelling was not standardized, we can infer from earlier
spellings of reaper that this word is more tightly connected to riper than we may have noticed at
first glance because both words were at one time spelled r-i-p-e-r—suggesting that they could be
the same word or at least a handy pun. Thus, the riper/reaper takes us full-circle to the ripeness of
produce and to the death—of either plants or animals—inherent in the act of eating.
(341 words)
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Paraphrase
We want the beautiful, honorable, and agreeable (if manipulative) people to reproduce
So that what attracts us to them will be preserved.
Even though one such person might steal away with these qualities when they age and die
That person’s child will take on, commemorate, and perpetuate them:
Instead, you are focused only on your present youth
5
And senselessly destroy yourself by consuming your most important strengths.
Once your apparent wealth runs out, you will be left with nothing.
You are your own enemy.
You are now young and beautiful but not fulfilling a function
Except to proclaim the arrival of youth’s beauty and duplicity
10
In your state of youth before it reaches its prime, you hide your beauty and your character2
And, you miser, lose it all by being stingy, keeping it all for yourself:
If you don’t regret and take responsibility for your selfishness, you are taking pleasure in
your own and our destruction,
Because you consume not only your potential offspring but beauty itself, both while you
live and when you die.
2
As well as your pleasure with what you have, your willingness to listen to the speaker’s argument, and your quarrel
with it
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Analysis
Fair implies that this
creature is beautiful,
honorable, just, honest,
and pliable. But it also
captures the idea that all
of this is a rouse, that the
creature uses outward
appearances to
manipulate others. The
speaker suggests, then,
that we desire more of
the things that deceive
us.
From fairest creatures we desire increase,
Fair also suggests a
creature that does not
decompose (i.e., doesn’t
die). The second line
complicates this by
changing the focus of
immortality from this
creature to “beauty’s
rose."
Thyself thy foe, to thy sweet self too cruel.
That thereby beauty’s rose might never die,
But as the riper should by time decease,
His tender heir might bear his memory:
Beauty’s rose is a figure that attempts to name something
that it never actually names. What can be said is that beauty
possesses something (the rose) that could die but “we” don’t
want it to. The poem many be read to suggest that this image
refers to the physical beauty as well as the “memory” of the
“fairest creatures” that can be preserved in their offspring,
but the figure itself does not contain this meaning because
rose does not draw an explicit or implicit comparison to this
kind of preservation.
But thou, contracted to thine own bright eyes,
Feed’st thy light’s flame with self-substantial fuel,
Making a famine where abundance lies,
Thou that art now the world’s fresh ornament,
And only herald to the gaudy spring,
Within thine own bud buriest thy content,
And, tender churl, mak’st waste in niggarding:
Pity the world, or else this glutton be,
To eat the world’s due, by the grave and thee.
Content creates ambiguity because its
definitions contradict each other.
In one sense, the speaker accuses the young
man of concealing his own contents, that is,
what the young man is inside. However, the
speaker may also suggest that the ability to
contain something is itself hidden, or that he
hides the possibility that he has no contents
(that he is a superficial person who is only
attractive on the outside).
The speaker could accuse the young man of
burying his pleasure, the source of his pleasure,
or his desire for anything more. Perhaps this
means that the young man refuses to
acknowledge that he agrees with the speaker’s
request. Interestingly, the speaker suggests that
the young man could be hiding both willingness
or consent to what the speaker asks of him as
well as the opposite, the young man’s
contentious stance against the speaker.
Self-substantial is another odd image. The term
appears to mean something like self-sustaining,
self-perpetuating, or feeding on itself.
Sustaining is related to substantial insofar as
substantial things sustain—i.e., support, uphold,
nourish, perpetuate—physical structures and
bodies, or one’s wealth or reputation. Selfsubstantial comes close to self-sustaining when it
means self-nourishing.
However, self-substantial can also mean
something like self-strong, self-sturdy, selfsignificant, self-reliable, self-worth, self-respect,
self-honor. It gets even weirder when the
denotations shift to self-essence, self-existence,
self-reality, self-truth. The speaker suggests that
the young man feeds on the fuel of his own selfimportance, perhaps his own ego or his outward
reputation, as well as on the truth of what he is.
In either case, the fuel consumes itself.
Substantial suggests that this self-consumption is
sustainable, but this does not logically hold and is
immediately contested in the line that follows
with “abundance” turning into “famine.”
Procreation and Consumption
Although these words do not appear in the sonnet, it is odd and therefore
noteworthy that many of the sonnet’s words fit into lexicons (categories of
words) related at least figuratively to procreation and consumption.
Procreation: increase, heir, memory, making, abundance, ornament, bud
Consumption: fairest, riper, feed, substantial, famine, waste, niggarding,
glutton, eat
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Works Cited
Shakespeare, William. “Selected Sonnets.” 2017. pdf. file.
Works Consulted
"churl, n." OED Online, Oxford University Press, July 2017, www.oed.com/view/Entry/32843.
Accessed 2 July 2017.
"content, n.1, n.2, † conˈtent, n.3, adj.2, and n.4." OED Online, Oxford University Press, July
2017, www.oed.com/view/Entry/40144. Accessed 2 July 2017.
"contracted, adj." OED Online, Oxford University Press, July 2017, www.oed.com/view/Entry
/40334. Accessed 2 July 2017.
"fair, adj., n.1, n. 2, v., and adv." OED Online, Oxford University Press, July 2017, www.oed.
com/view/Entry/ 67704. Accessed 1 July 2017.
"gaudy, adj.2." OED Online, Oxford University Press, July 2017, www.oed.com/view/Entry
/77115. Accessed 3 July 2017.
"glutton, n. and adj." OED Online, Oxford University Press, July 2017, www.oed.com/view/
Entry/79354. Accessed 2 July 2017.
"herald, n." OED Online, Oxford University Press, July 2017, www.oed.com/view/Entry/86043.
Accessed 2 July 2017.
"memory, n." OED Online, Oxford University Press, July 2017, www.oed.com/view/Entry/
116363. Accessed 3 July 2017.
"niggard, v., n., and adj." OED Online, Oxford University Press, July 2017, www.oed.com/view/
Entry/126920. Accessed 1 July 2017.
"ornament, n." OED Online, Oxford University Press, July 2017, www.oed.com/view/Entry/
132624. Accessed 2 July 2017.
"piety, n." OED Online, Oxford University Press, July 2017, www.oed.com/view/Entry/143641.
Accessed 3 July 2017.
"pity, n. and v." OED Online, Oxford University Press, July 2017, www.oed.com/view/Entry/
144814. Accessed 3 July 2017.
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"propagation, n." OED Online, Oxford University Press, July 2017, www.oed.com/view/Entry/
152614. Accessed 2 July 2017.
"reaper, n." OED Online, Oxford University Press, July 2017, www.oed.com/view/Entry/
158995. Accessed 1 July 2017.
"reaver, n." OED Online, Oxford University Press, July 2017, www.oed.com/view/Entry/
159128. Accessed 2 July 2017.
"ripe, adj., n.2, and adv." OED Online, Oxford University Press, July 2017, www.oed.com/view/
Entry/166205. Accessed 1 July 2017.
"ripener, n." OED Online, Oxford University Press, June 2017, www.oed.com/view/Entry/
166213. Accessed 2 July 2017.
"riper, n.1 and † n.2." OED Online, Oxford University Press, July 2017, www.oed.com/view/
Entry/166218. Accessed 1 July 2017.
"substantial, adj., n., and adv." OED Online, Oxford University Press, July 2017, www.oed.com/
view/Entry/193050. Accessed 1 July 2017.
"sustain, v." OED Online, Oxford University Press, July 2017, www.oed.com/view/Entry/
195209. Accessed 1 July 2017.
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B Rubric | Draft
Logistics
Focus passage reproduced
All data, including essay, contained in one document
Assignment arrives on time to Canvas as directed
Mechanics
Grammar: few patterns of error
MLA 8-style parenthetical citations
MLA 8-style Works Cited and Works Consulted (if not directly cited)
Close Reading Data: Glossing, Paraphrase, Analysis | 40%
Narrative explanation of meanings for one focus word and two proximate words
300 words per explanation
Draws on the Oxford English Dictionary
Tight paraphrase
Identifies and explains effects of figures of speech and ambiguity
B Rubric | Final
Logistics
Focus passage reproduced
All data, including essay, contained in one document
Assignment arrives on time to Canvas as directed
Mechanics
Grammar: few patterns of error
MLA 8-style parenthetical citations
MLA 8-style Works Cited and Works Consulted (if not directly cited)
Close Reading Data: Glossing, Paraphrase, Analysis | 40%
Narrative explanation of meanings for one focus word and two proximate words
300 words per explanation
Draws on the Oxford English Dictionary
Tight paraphrase
Identifies and explains effects of figures of speech and ambiguity
Essay
750-1000 words—excluding header, block (four-line) quotations, and Works Cited
Makes an original argument in response to prompt
Supported by textual analysis that attempts a line of reasoning
Includes original title
F
Rom fairelt creatures we defire increafe,
That thereby beauties R9ft might neuer die,
But as the riper fhould by time deceafe,
His tender heire might beare his memory:
But thou contracted to thine owne bright eyes,
Feed'fi thy lights flame with (elfe rubllantiall fewell,
Making a famine where aboundance lies,
Thy felfe thy foe.eo thy fweee [e1fe tOOcrueU:
Thou that art now the worlds frelh ornament,
And only herauld to the gaudy (pring,
Within thine owne bud buridl thy content,
And tender chorle makfi wafi in niggarding:
Pitty theworld,or el[e this glutton be,
To eate the worlds due,by the graue and thee.
From fairest creatures we desire increase,
That thereby beauty's rose might never die,
But as the riper should by time decease,
His tender heir might bear his memory:
But thou, contracted to thine own bright eyes,
Feed'st thy light's flame with self-substantial fuel,
Making a famine where abundance lies,
Thyself thy foe, to thy sweet self too cruel.
Thou that art now the world's fresh ornament,
And only herald to the gaudy spring,
Within thine own bud buriest thy content,
And, tender churl, mak'st waste in niggarding:
Pity the world, or else this glutton be,
To eat the world's due, by the grave and thee.
{ 45}
VVHen
I
fortie Winters /ball befeige thy brew.
And digge deep trenches in thy beauties field.
Thy yourhcs proud liuery fo gaz.'d on now.
Wi! be a rotter'd weed offmal worth held:
Then being askr.where all thy beautie lies.
Where all the treafure of thy lufiy daies;
To fay within thine owne deepe fimken eyes,
Were an all-eating Ihame.and rhrifrlefle praife.
How much more praife deferu' d thy beauties vfe,
If thou couldll anfwere this faire child of mine
Shall fum my counr,and make myoId excufc
Proouing his beautie by fuccdIion thine.
'This were to be new made when thou art ould,
And fee thy blood warme when thon feel'll it could.
I
I
I
When forty winters shall besiege thy brow,
And dig deep trenches in thy beauty's field,
Thy youth's proud livery so gazed on now
Will be a tottered weed of small worth held:
Then being asked, where all thy beauty lies,
Where all the treasure of thy lusty days,
To say within thine own deep-sunken eyes
Were an all-eating shame, and thriftless praise.
How much more praise deserved thy beauty's use,
If thou couldst answer, "This fair child of mine
Shall sum my count, and make myoid excuse,"
Proving his beauty by succession thine.
This were to be new made when thou art old,
And see thy blood warm when thou feel'st it cold.
{ 52 }
A
Wormns face with natures owne hand painted,
Halte thou the Ma/l~r MiHris of rnyJallion,
A womans gentle halt but not acquainte
With /hifting change as is falfe wornens f./hion,
An eye more bright then theirs,lei!"efalfe in rowling:
Cjlding the obiea where-vpon it gazcth,
A man in hew all Hews in his cc ntrowling,
Which Ileales mens eyes and womens foules amafeth,
And for a woman wert thou firO:created,
Till nature as Ihe wrought thee fell a dcnnge,
And by addition me of thee defeated,
By adding one thing to my purpofe nothing.
But fince fhe prickt thee out for womens pleafure-.
Mine bethy laue and thy loues vU: their rreafure,
A woman's face with Nature's own hand painted
Hast thou, the master-mistress of my passion;
A woman's gentle heart, but not acquainted
With shifting change, as is false women's fashion;
An eye more bright than theirs, less false in rolling,
Gilding the object whereupon it gazeth;
A man in hue, all hues in his controlling,
Which steals men's eyes and women's souls amazeth.
And for a woman wert thou first created,
Till Nature as she wrought thee fell a-doting,
And by addition me of thee defeated,
By adding one thing to my purpose nothing.
But since she pricked thee out for women's pleasure,
Mine be thy love, and thy love's use their treasure.
{ 127 }
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