Speaker or Narrator, and Point of View
A female speaker making an argument against a group of antagonists, likely other, male, poets. Her argument spans the entire sonnet, but the formal elements in the sestet suggest a lack of certainty by the end of the poem.
Form and Meter
Petrarchan Sonnet—8 lines with rhyme scheme ABBAABBA followed by 6 lines with rhyme scheme CCDEED
Metaphors and Similes
"Yet so slight conquest doth not him beseem"—love is personified as a human entity capable of conquering others
"But in the soul true love in safety lies"—love again imagined as a concrete energy lying in "safety"; describes love an internally legible rather than performative emotion
Alliteration and Assonance
Alliteration
"do deem / that doth appear"—repetition of /d/ sound
"love lost"
"looks love overthrows"
Assonance
"kissing, toying, or by swearing's gloze"—repetition of the -ing ending
"yet so slight conquest doth not him beseem"—repetition of the short /o/ sound
"die as favours from them slide"—repetition of the long /i/ sound
Consonance
"yet so slight conquest doth not him beseem"—repetition of the /s/ sound
Irony
The overarching irony of the poem is the fact that the speaker criticizes the Petrarchan style while subscribing to it herself. Arguing that Petrarchan tropes and form are mere performance, she leads readers to the end of the poem by employing the same tropes she appears to dismiss. By the end of the poem, the speaker has ironically crafted what many might call a Petrarchan sonnet.
Genre
sonnet, lyric poetry
Setting
Spoken/written in private in context of the larger sonnet sequence
Tone
argumentative, critical, bitter, uncertain
Protagonist and Antagonist
speaker vs. Petrarchan poets; female vs. male; Protestants vs. Catholics
Major Conflict
The speaker, plagued by love, is unhappy with the way poets have expressed love in the past and wishes to craft a new understanding of love and love poetry.
Climax
The poem builds tension throughout by giving evidence to support an argument, and finally "turns" between lines 13 and 14 when the speaker appears to contradict herself with the phrase "and yet"
Foreshadowing
The speaker hints to her antagonist by gradually including Petrarchan images and language in the poem such as "kissing, toying, swearing" and "sighs and tears." The form of the sestet deviates from the regular iambic pentameter and may foreshadow the uncertain turn in the final line of the poem.
Understatement
"it is not love which you poor fools do deem" is an understated way of attacking the Petrarchan poets somewhat indirectly.
Allusions
"poor fools" alludes to Petrarchan poets and/or Catholic sympathizers if one considers a political/religious reading
"keep those chosen blows" alludes to the trope of both erotic and spiritual poetry where love/God is configured as painful and abusive
"yet so slight conquest doth not him beseem" alludes to the classical image of love as a conquering Cupid figure
"'Tis not a show of sighs, or tears can prove" alludes to the common Petrarchan trope of expressing one's love through sighs and tears
Metonymy and Synecdoche
"sighs and tears" is a metonym standing in for the common tropes of Petrarchan love poetry
Personification
"Yet so slight conquest doth not him beseem"—love is personified as a person with martial power
Hyperbole
"though oft with face and looks love overthrows / yet so slight conquest doth not him beseem"
"which blasts of feigned love / increase, or die"
the speaker raises the stakes of her argument by using hyperbolic language related to war and death
