"Nuns Fret Not at Their Convent's Narrow Room" is a sonnet written by William Wordsworth. A sonnet is a poetic form that the fourteen lines must be written in iambic pentameter and has a demanding rhyme scheme. Wordsworth wrote over five hundred sonnets about many different themes and concerns. This sonnet is symbolic to Wordsworth feelings to sonnets and how their boundaries make the poem concise but that he is comfortable with the boundaries. In the sonnet "Nuns Fret Not at Their Convent's Narrow Room" by William Wordsworth argues that the sonnets fourteen lines allows him to express his feelings, but if the poem has no line constraints the author will not be able to convey their thoughts concisely because they will get carried away and distracted.

The speaker of this poem is an author who writes poetry just like Wordsworth. The speaker could also be Wordsworth because it says, "Should find brief solace there, as I have found" (14). The speaker of the poem is in a room writing his poems, confined just like the sonnet is confined to fourteen lines. The speaker is addressing the sonnet form and how you have to write it. "Within the Sonnet's scanty plot of ground" (11) is showing how the speaker has to confine his thoughts into a small amount of ground. The speaker of this poem, be it Wordsworth or some other poet, is not afraid or upset with the sonnets fourteen lines; he actually feels comfortable inside the parameters. 

"Nuns Fret Not at Their Convent's Narrow Room" (1) shows that nuns do not care about how small their rooms are and they are comfortable in them and will get their work done. "Maid at the wheel, weaver at his loom, / Sit blithe and happy" (4-5) shows that people are content with their jobs and the area they have to work in even though it may be small and confined they still get their work done. The maids and weavers are happy with their jobs because as Wordsworth says they sit "blithe" and "happy" meaning they are not complaining or dreading their work. The situation of this sonnet is that the speaker is concerned about the fourteen lines of a sonnet but he feels comfortable within its boundaries and he uses other examples to show how people are also comfortable in their small rooms when doing their work. "Should find brief solace there, as I have found" (14) shows how his attitude is comfortable with the sonnet. The tone of this poem is being content within your boundaries; should it be working in a small office or writing a poem that has line constraints.  

If an author doesn't have a line constraint they can write on and on rambling about things and not sticking to their main point but adding in minor details that do not mean anything. With a sonnets form you are able to convey your thought in a certain amount of lines so everything you need to say, you will say because you have to fit it all. This makes writers cut out things that are not important to the plot. Wordsworth states that people will get carried away with too much freedom and no direction and states that "Pleased if some Souls (for such there needs must be)/ who have felt the weight of too much liberty" (12-13). Which means that people who do not have restrictions on their writing will feel the "weight of too much liberty" (13) and try to compensate because it is short, even though they got their point across, and add more filler that is not needed for the poem. When people are told strict directions and know that the consequences of them are that their work will not be published if they do not follow them, they will get their argument or point across in as little as possible lines to ensure that it will be valid. 

Wordsworth believes that the sonnet is the best form of writing a poem because he thinks without the line limits the sonnet presents an author will keep writing just for the sake of it because they have a lot on their mind. In a sonnet you only have fourteen lines to play with so to get all your thoughts in you will work to fit it all in, even if it means editing and cutting things out that aren't important to the main theme. The sonnet presents authors with the best way to write a poem because of only being able to write fourteen lines they get their thoughts across in a neat and orderly manner that is concise for the readers so they do not have to sift through filler to find the main points. 

