Jul 31, 2015 · Few collections of poems—indeed, few literary works in general—intrigue, challenge, tantalize, and reward as do Shakespeare's Sonnets. Almost all of them love poems, the Sonnets philosophize, celebrate, attack, plead, and express pain, longing, and despair, all …

Sonnet 4: ‘Unthrifty loveliness, why dost thou spend’ by William Shakespeare is a fourteen-line sonnet that is structured in the “Shakespearean” or English form. It is made up of three quatrains, or sets of four lines, and one concluding couplet, or set of two rhyming lines.

Read Shakespeare's sonnet 4 with a modern English translation: Wasteful youth, why do you squander on yourself the riches that you should leave to the world? Nature gives.

Sonnet 4 is one of 154 sonnets written by the English playwright and poet William Shakespeare. It is a procreation sonnet within the Fair Youth sequence. Shakespeare urges the man to have children, and thus not waste his beauty by not creating more children.

Actually understand Shakespeare's Sonnets Sonnet 4. Read every line of Shakespeare’s original text alongside a modern English translation.

The text of Shakespeare's sonnet 4 with critical notes and analysis. The theme of posterity continues with a mercantile conceit.

Sonnet IV Unthrifty loveliness, why dost thou spend Upon thy self thy beauty's legacy? Nature's bequest gives nothing, but doth lend, And being frank she lends to those are free: Then, beauteous niggard, why dost thou abuse The bounteous largess given thee to give? Profitless usurer, why dost thou use So great a sum of sums, yet canst not live?

Sonnets are made up of fourteen lines, each being ten syllables long. Its rhymes are arranged according to one of the following schemes: • Italian, where eight lines consisting of two quatrains...

Sonnet 4 summarizes all that the poet has been saying thus far. In a series of questions and statements, the poet lectures about the wise use of nature, which liberally lends its gifts to those who are equally generous in perpetuating nature by having children.

For other versions of this work, see Sonnet 4 (Shakespeare). IV. Upon thy self thy beauty's legacy? And being frank she lends to those are free. The bounteous largess given thee to give? So great a sum of sums, yet canst not live? Thou of thyself thy sweet self dost deceive. What acceptable audit canst thou leave?