An Analysis of A Crown of Sonnets Dedicated to Love
A Crown of Sonnets Dedicated to Love is a poem series by Lady Mary Wroth, but this essay will focus only on the first sonnet of the sequence. Wroth had a particular writing style that appears within this poem. This sonnet follows the Shakespearian formula rigidly and uses it quite effectively, though it isn’t just a sonnet. The poem itself addresses love and the many roads it can lead to, and not many of them are truly desirable. Surprisingly, the poem does not use literary elements like alliteration and assonance to make the poem interesting, instead it harnesses repetition and rhyme to compel the readers. The sonnet feels seamless, which can be attributed to the transitions from one idea to the next along with the choice in language. The speaker of the poem does not come to a conclusion, which potentially speaks volumes about the authors own thoughts about love.
Lady Mary Wroth wrote during a rich literary period in English history, yet her work was not widely published until years after her death. Perhaps most renowned for Pamphilia to Amphilanthus, the first sonnet sequence of the Renaissance to be written and voiced by a woman, Wroth presented a highly innovative and unique style in her writing. In her prose as well as in her poetry, Lady Mary Wroth incorporated a dualistic balance of independence from and reliance on the works published by the male authors of and before her time. This complex duality was evident in her social life, as she often fluctuated between a life of public expression and private seclusion. As a writer, she fostered conflicting themes of autonomy and passivity, passionate liberty and legalism, action and stillness, and constancy and infidelity. Although these themes often appear contradictory within her writing, they instead represent the various shades of character that color Wroth’s intricate manner of perception.
The first passage of Lady