Like many Renaissance sonnets, Spenser’s “XXXV” is about love, specifically an obsessive and overwhelming love. The speaker is obsessed with the “fair sight” (Line 10) of his beloved. The poem focuses on looking at her. However, her beauty is only given the description “fair” (Line 10). Instead of listing the beloved’s features or qualities, her physical attributes metaphorically become sustenance. This is an example of the extreme passion characteristic of Petrarchan sonnets. While Spenser’s beloved eventually fulfills his desires and becomes his wife (unlike Petrarch’s beloved, Laura), this sonnet is about the intense longing in the early phase of their courtship.

Beauty as food makes thereby makes it necessary for survival. The speaker argues that his eyes, “lacking [the view of his beloved], they cannot life sustain” (Line 5). Being able to look at the beloved is key to the sonneteer’s very life. This extreme reliance describes a romantic love boarding on religious. The speaker’s communion is metaphoric consumption through the eyes. Rather than consuming the body of Christ, the beloved becomes the holy figure who the speaker eats up with his eyes. He sees the beloved as necessary for sustaining life—both on earth and in the afterlife.