Similar Sonnet

I must say that I have had quite an interesting week. I am both glad and sad to say that I had a two and a half day week because I was sick on Monday and Tuesday, glad because I got to miss school, but sad because I missed so much in Ms. Clinch’s wonderful class. One such thing was the introduction to the sonnets we have recently discussed in class. I didn’t really have a background going into the seminar, but just sitting and listening was enlightening as I was able to learn that sonnets are about unrequited love and cruel/fair women. I also learned that a sonnet always has a shift or a turning point that is somewhere within the 14 lines of the poem. The one thing that really caught my eye in terms of the sonnets we discussed in class was the similarities that existed between them, the sonnet by Sir Thomas Wyatt and Sonnet 67 by Edmund Spenser in particular.
Aside from the extended metaphors present in both sonnets regarding a man being on a hunt to obtain a woman, there were many other similarities that existed within the metaphor that really struck me. The first was the fact that both sonnets referred to the woman as a deer or doe. I mean sure, deer are beautiful creatures, but the fact that they are being hunted as prey is rather interesting. The women are clearly seen as objects, as I am sure many were in the time period the sonnets were written, and the capture of a woman’s interest seems to be almost like a game for the men. Another similarity that caught my eye is that although the chase is somewhat of a game in capturing one’s prey, it also seems that the men are both exhausted from their journey. The men see it as a game, but a necessary game, that has led them along a long and wearied path leading to a tired mind and body. Another point of comparison is that the men in both poems wish to either tame the deer or to tie it up in some way, shape, or manner. This again points to the view that women are objects meant to be tamed and owned, almost like animals. But, it also seemed like the women had a lot of power in the situation, especially in the sonnet by Spenser. The woman in both almost led the men on the chase because of their cruelly fair looks and in the end either tricked them into “taming” them or walked away. Although the outcomes of the poem, one being that the man “got”, for we don’t know if the woman planned on being with the man all along or not, the woman and the other being that woman was already “owned”, for we do not know if she really is owned or merely acts like it, by another man, there are many similarities present as aforementioned. These similarities, above all else, seem to characterize sonnets as many have similar aspects, but almost always have some type of deeper meaning that is extremely confusing.