Henry Howard Earl of Surrey – “Set me whereas the sun doth parch the green”

Right from the title the intelligent reader can understand that this sonnet comes from a collection of sonnets, because the title is the first line of the sonnet. More in particular the reader may be curious to find out who the poet is speaking to when he says 'set me'. The reader may be also interested in finding out why the poet encourages someone to set him where the sun parch the green.

Looking at the structure the intelligent reader can recognize the Elizabethan form: three quatrains and a rhyming couplet; furthermore he can notice that each quatrain starts with 'set me' while the couplet starts with the possessive pronoun 'hers': since 'hers' refers to a female person, the reader may suppose that 'set me' refer to that woman too, maybe the one the poet is in love with, since sonnets generally focus on intimate feelings, like love.

The three quatrains are made up of oxymorons, from the first line ('set me whereas the sun doth parch the green', where is hot / 'or where his beams do not dissolve the ice', where is colder) to line 12 ('sick or in health, in evil fame or good') the poet presents different opposite conditions. But is from the final couplet that the reader can understand the whole sonnet. Indeed the poet says that he will be hers, and this thought content him although his hope is nought. Now the reader's conjectures are confirmed: 'set me' is referred to a woman, indeed the poet says 'hers will I be'. Even the statement, however, is in opposition with the poet's condition that is uncertain because of the opposition between the absolute certainty that he's hers and his chance that is 'nought'.