Sonnet 43

“Sonnet 43” is an English sonnet, which is a variant of the original form developed by the Italian poet, Francesco Petrarch. The rhyme scheme of Petrarch’s Italian sonnet is ABBA ABBA CDE CDE and is divided between the octave (the first eight lines), which presents the problem, and the sestet (the last 6 lines), which comments on the problem. The Englishman Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey, developed the English variant that changed the layout to three quatrains, with a concluding couplet. The rhyme scheme of this English variant was ABAB CDCD EFEF GG. The situation is presented in the first 12 lines and the comment is usually present in the couple. According to the University of Oxford, “Shakespeare wrote so successfully in this particular format that it has taken his name, rather than Surrey’s, and became the ‘Shakespearean sonnet’” (“The Mystery of the ‘First’ English Sonnet.” The University of Oxford, 2021). “Sonnet 43” is an example of this form of the English sonnet. The meter, as in most of William Shakespeare’s sonnets, is iambic pentameter, or five successive iambs (an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable).