And the sonnet’s rhythmical structure also serves the same purpose. Those alternate end rhymes also produce inevitability in microcosm: once the pattern has been established, we are simply waiting for the completing rhyme. Each positive or relatively neutral term turns bad or is negated by its rhyming completion: dignity becomes mutiny; scene becomes unclean; foes, overthrows; life, strife; love, remove. Both the formal structure and the fatalistic language underline the proleptic or spoiler-like character of the opening Prologue. And this anticipatory quality is itself an anticipation of
...more
