Sonnet

At the core of “Sonnet” is the internal struggle that moves the speaker to utterance. While the speaker’s particular struggle is explicit, it is nonetheless clear that the speaker’s goal is to get his heart to “be brave” (Line 1) and to overcome the hardship. To do this, the speaker—and by extension, his heart—must not “let [his] strength and courage fail” (Line 4).

The poem’s depiction of this overcoming is rather unique. Johnson uses many techniques and double meanings to hint that the struggle is related to race and that “the coming morrow” (Line 7) will bring the eradication of such prejudice. The temporariness of prejudice, and the inevitability of beneficial change (even if the “battle” is “thick” and “fierce the fight” [Line 13]), means that overcoming requires endurance rather than strength. This is perhaps why the speaker’s first injunction to his heart is to “be brave” (Line 1) and why “strength” is unmentioned until the fourth line. Endurance’s importance is easy to miss, as it relies on the proper interpretation of the word “For” (Line 5), which indicates the end goal of the heart’s fortitude and is not a filler for metrical requirements (as is typical in metrical poetry). Grammatically, the construction of Lines 5-7 informs

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