Textual analysis of ONE DAY I WROTE HER NAME UPON THE STRAND by Edmund Spencer

One Day I Wrote Her Name Upon The Strand by Edmund Spencer is a sonnet, since it is composed of fourteen lines, and it is in Petrarchan form because the first eight lines are arranged into two quatrains, whose end is identified by full stop. The title of the poem coincides with its first line, so this sonnet is a part of a collection.

Just considering the title, the reader understands that the narrating voice has written a lady’s name on the sand and this action happened in the past, because of the use of the time expression “One day”. Going on reading the poem, the narrating voice says that the waves of the sea came and they erased the name; the narrator tried writing it again, but the tide made all his efforts vain. At the beginning of the second quatrain, the lady speaks in first person to the narrator, reproaching him for trying to make immortal a thing which is subjected to decay, and she tells him she will disappear just like the name he had written. The poet answers that vulgar things may eventually turn to dust, but she will live thanks to the poem itself which will make her memory eternal, defeating death.

The sonnet is full of figures of speech and images. The first quatrain is characterized by the use of words belonging to the semantic field of sea, which conveys the idea of immensity, but also of continuous movement and change. As a matter of fact, the name written in the sand does not last long, like the lady herself, so there is an analogy between the fading of the name and the woman’s death. There are also some assonances and alliterations such as “m” (“came”, “made”, “my”) which gives the idea of suffering, and “p” (“paynes” and “pray”) which conveys frustration. One can finally notice the inversion of verb and subject (“came the waves”, “came the tide”) which contributes to slow down rhythm and to communicate the narrator’s sadness. 

In the following quatrain, there is a sudden change in syntax because of the lady’s direct speech, introduced by “sayd she”. The harshness of this speech is stressed by the repetition of the word “vaine” that indicates the haughtiness and foolishness of trying to immortalize a decaying object. Moreover, to this purpose the poet places side by side the terms “mortal” and “immortalize” in the same line. There is also the alliteration of “s” (line 5 and following), that indicates the roughness of the lady’s speech.

In the final sestet, the poet expresses his disagreement towards the lady’s words, saying that base things will be destroyed by death and natural decay, while their love will be made eternal through poetry. The contempt towards mortal things is expressed by the alliteration of “d” (“devize to dy in dust”), while the repeated use of “e” (open sound) in line 11 expresses infinity, and the repetition of “l” (“love shall live”, “later life”) in line 14 states the continuation of life.

This sonnet contains an effective exaltation of poetry, since it is considered a powerful instrument to win over death and to make someone’s memory eternal. However, there is also a scorn towards vulgar things, which does not deserve memory, and the poet contrasts them with the lady’s virtues, which will always be remembered together with her name, even if death (or sea) tries to put them into oblivion.