“One Day I Wrote Here Name upon the Strand” By Edmund Spenser(1552- 1599)

Seventh Lecture
“One Day I Wrote Here Name upon the Strand” By Edmund Spenser(1552- 1599)
This sonnet is an extract from the poem Amoretti written by Edmund Spencer in the renaissance era it is a Spenserian sonnet . The poem shows us a vivid picture ,the couple is along the seaside, the man is trying to write the lady’s name on the sand, but waves come and wash it away. Then he writes again, but all in vain. The lady persuades him to give up and says that as time passes, she will also die just as the name wiped out by waves , But the man holds a different point of view. He believes that he could challenge mortality and time by “Art”, his verses will make her immortal. Spenser metaphorically compares tide rising and falling to the process of life. Also, in the sentence “But came the tyde, and made my paynes his pray”, the poet personifies the seawater to a beast and compares the “name” to “his pray”, which implies that time and tide wait for no man, and that everyone is doomed to die. The lady in this poem feels insecure about time fleeting, while the man insists on “our love shall live, and later life renew”.

More to discuss in this Poem
1- Poetic devices
2- Dramatic situation of this poem
3- The themes
4- Images in the poem