Jul 31, 2015 · Sonnet 4 The poet returns to the idea of beauty as treasure that should be invested for profit. Here, the young man’s refusal to beget a child is likened to his spending inherited wealth on himself rather than investing it or sharing it generously.

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...

One of the 154 sonnets by Shakespeare from the collection Shakespeare's Sonnets (1609).

Biographical aspects of the Sonnets - Examines the worth of Shakespeare's sonnets in piecing together clues as to the nature of his romantic life. His Family and Education - Available biographical details of Shakespeare's early life.