Summary 'No longer mourn for me when I am dead' by Shakespeare in-depth IEB analysis

‘No longer mourn for me when I am dead’ William Shakespeare (1564-1616)

Alliteration
No longer mourn for me when I am dead
View of the world
Than you shall hear the surly sullen bell Command to lover
Give warning to the world that I am fled Reasons for command
From this vile world with vilest worms to dwell; Imagery of death
Nay, if you read this line, remember not
The hand that writ it; for I love you so,
That I in your sweet thoughts would be forgot,
If thinking on me then should make you woe.
O! if, I say, you look upon this verse,
When I perhaps compounded am with clay,
Do not so much as my poor name rehearse,
But let your love even with my life decay,
Lest the wise world should look into your moan,
And mock you with me after I am gone.




Meaning
• Despair over social judgement on a relationship.
• Not holding onto the past to prevent suffering.

Angles
• Forbidden Love
• People die but poetry lives on.

Structure
• Shakespearean Sonnet:
→ Quatrain 1: Don’t mourn
→ Quatrain 2: I love you too much to cause you suffering.
→ Quatrain 3: Forget me and let me die.
→ Rhyming Couplet: Final assertion that their love should die as they would be
judged.
• Very ordered and set rhyme scheme.

Tone/Mood
Melancholic, sombre, pleading