A Short Summary of the Poem "One Day I Wrote her Name" by Edmund Spenser

One Day I Wrote her Name by Edmund Spenser

About the Poet: 
Edmund Spenser is best known for his long epic poem, The Faerie Queene which is about Elizabeth I. Spenser was influenced by Gabriel Harvey, who was a prominent educationist at that time. Harvey's ideas helped Spenser to revive English literature. Spenser was influenced by Latin, Italian and French traditions of literature and it can be seen in his poetry. His works include a sonnet sequence, Amoretti. 

Summary of the Poem: 
One day I Wrote her Name is a sonnet. It is taken from Spenser's collection of sonnets, Amoretti. It is a love poem in which the poet speaks of his love for his beloved which he tries to record on the shore of the sea. The setting of the poem is seashore and the poet and his beloved are having good time on the seashore. They are in love with each other and the poet wants to express his love by writing her name on the sand on the beach. The poet writes her name upon the sand but the waves of the sea wash it away. The poet writes it for the second time and again the waves wash it. The poet uses personification at this time when he says: "But came the tide, and made my pains his prey". Here he says that as if 'tide' is a living thing which makes the poet's pains as his 'prey'. The poet's beloved is watching the poet who is writing her name upon the sand. She feels that it is of no use that he is writing her name upon the sand. She feels that she is mortal so her name cannot be immortal. She thinks that it is a vain attempt by his lover to write her name on the sand. She thinks that as she is going to die one day her name will also be wiped out in the same way. The poet has very different thoughts on this. He feels that all the base and crude things may die by but she will live on in name. The poet thinks that his verse will make her virtues eternal and will be recorded in his poetry for all time. When death will bring everything else to a close their love will stay forever through his poetry. The poem is written in two stanzas. The first stanza has eight lines and the second stanza has six lines. The first stanza has rhyme scheme as ababacac and the second stanza has rhyme scheme as ababacac.

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