Sonnet 39 a pleasant opportunity to think on love, and, absence, you teach "one" to be not solitary but to be "two," by praising the young man where I am, though he continues to be elsewhere (hence).” Sonnet 39 Sonnet 39 is one of 154 sonnets written by the English playwright and poet William Shakespeare. It is a member of the Fair Youth sequence, in which the poet expresses his love towards a young man. Sonnet 39 is an English or Shakespearean sonnet, composed of three quatrains and a final rhyming couplet for a total of fourteen lines. It follows the rhyme
Sonnet 16 'sow' it (compare Sonnet 15 where it is used of grafting) so that it can give birth to the youth's "living flowers," self-generated new copies. Interpretation of the sonnet is said to hinge on the third quatrain (lines 9-12), which is generally regarded as obscure. Edmond Malone suggested that "lines of life" refers to children, with a pun on line as bloodline. This reading was accepted by Edward Dowden and others. Also, "repair" can mean to make anew or newly father (re + père), which may be relevant. But as well, "lines of life" can mean the length of life,