"Nuns Fret Not at Their Convent's Narrow Room" is a sonnet written by William Wordsworth. A sonnet is a poetic form in which 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. The normal poet is usually very expressive and detailed in what he is trying to say, but Wordsworth is comfortable within the constraints of the sonnet, which is ironic because usually poets need more space to express their thoughts.

It could be infirmed that the speaker of this poem is an author who writes poetry just like Wordsworth. The speaker could also be Wordsworth because when the speaker states, "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 neither afraid nor upset with the sonnets fourteen lines; he actually feels comfortable inside the parameters. 

The title of the sonnet and first line "Nuns Fret Not at Their Convent's Narrow Room" (1) this line emphasizes that nuns do not care about how small their rooms are and they are comfortable in them and will get their work done. More examples are "Maid at the wheel, weaver at his loom, / Sit blithe and happy" (4-5) which 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 as 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 ramble on ramble on about things and go into detail of what they are trying to explain and really support their thoughts because they aren't constricted to just fourteen lines. With a sonnets form, writers are able to convey their thoughts in a certain amount of lines so everything they need to say, will be clear in the poem. This makes writers cut out things that are over the top with description and make them get to their point. Wordsworth states that people will get carried away with too much freedom and no direction and claims that "Pleased if some Souls (for such there needs must be)/ who have felt the weight of too much liberty" (12-13). From those lines readers can infer that people who do not have restrictions on their writing will feel the "weight of too much liberty" (13).It is ironic that Wordsworth says this because the normal poet wouldn't want to be constrained and they would want to be able to freely express their emotions and add as much detail as they want to really convey an image. Wordsworth is skilled because this is a hard task for many poets to fit their thoughts, feelings and emotions into a mere fourteen lines when they can write a poem that could go on for one hundred pages, so people who write sonnets should be respected in their efforts in conveying their feelings with line constraints. 

Wordsworth believes that the sonnet is the best form of writing a poem. He thinks without the line limits that 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 work with. The normal writer would want more lines so they could fully communicate their thoughts without worrying about how many lines they have left to spare. The sonnet presents authors with the best way to write a poem, in Wordsworth's mind, because of only being able to write fourteen lines they can get their thoughts across in a neat and orderly manner that is concise for the readers. This is really ironic because Wordsworth is not like the so called "normal" writer and he feels comfortable within his boundaries of the sonnet and doesn't want to be able to explore the options of being able to write as much as he wants because he is happy where he is.

