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More sonnets by William Shakespeare
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More sonnets by William Shakespeare
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During the Renaissance period, most poets were writing love poems about their lovers/mistresses. The poets of this time often compared love to high, unrealistic, and unattainable beauty. Shakespeare, in his sonnet 18, continues the tradition of his time by comparing the speakers' love/mistress to the summer time of the year. It is during this time of the year that the flowers and the nature that surround them are at there peak for beauty. The theme of the poem is to show the speakers true interpretation of beauty. Beauties worst enemy is time and although beauty might fade it can still live on through a person's memory or words of a poem. The speaker realizes that beauty, like the subject of the poem, will remain perfect not in the eyes of the beholder but the eyes of those who read the poem. The idea of beauty living through the words of a poem is tactfully reinforced throughout the poem using linking devices such as similes and metaphors. The poet starts off the poem with a metaphoric Question of whether he "Shall compare thee to a summer's day?" this is a positive question asking whether the beauty of the summer is worthy of that compared to his lover/mistress. This is an effective metaphor because it suggests that the woman is either more or equally beautiful as the calm and warm summer which reinforces the idea of everlasting beauty. A summer day is calm and generally suppose to be filled with life and the beauty of the nature, which alludes to the beloveds' beauty. In line three of the poem the speaker compares the beloved to the summer day which is imperfect compared to the beloved. The summer is flawed in that it has "rough winds" which alludes to the idea that the beloved is perfect and is in fact superior to ... ... middle of paper ... ...of the beauty and love for the beloved. In line twelve "when in eternal lines to time thou grow'st." Summer will come and go every year but the beloved will always be beautiful this is an imperfection which is trait of summer only and the beloved is immune to it. Through these lines Shakespeare further enhances the idea of the beloved being eternally beautiful. Shakespeare's sonnet, "Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?" is a poem that enhances the idea of beauty higher then that of nature. Shakespeare uses what most would think to be flawless beauty, nature, and makes it seem dull compared to the beauty of the beloved. Shakespeare uses figurative devices effectively to enhance the idea of eternal beauty by comparing the idea that beauty in summer comes and goes but the beauty in his beloved will be preserved through the readers of the poem eternally.
When he writes "And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare as any she, belied with false compare." (lines 13-14) in the final couplet, one responds with an enlightened appreciation, making them understand Shakespeare's message that true love consists of something deeper than physical beauty. Shakespeare expresses his ideas in a wonderful fashion. Not only does he express himself through direct interpretation of his sonnet, but also through the levels at which he styled and produced it. One cannot help but appreciate his message of true love over lust, along with his creative criticism of Petrarchan sonnets.
Shakespeare’s sonnets include love, the danger of lust and love, difference between real beauty and clichéd beauty, the significance of time, life and death and other natural symbols such as, star, weather and so on. Among the sonnets, I found two sonnets are more interesting that show Shakespeare’s love for his addressee. The first sonnet is about the handsome young man, where William Shakespeare elucidated about his boundless love for him and that is sonnet 116. The poem explains about the lovers who have come to each other freely and entered into a relationship based on trust and understanding. The first four lines reveal the poet’s love towards his lover that is constant and strong and will not change if there any alternation comes. Next four lines explain about his love which is not breakable or shaken by the storm and that love can guide others as an example of true love but that extent of love cannot be measured or calculated. The remaining lines of the third quatrain refer the natural love which can’t be affected by anything throughout the time (it can also mean to death). In the last couplet, if
Shakespeare’s themes are mostly conventional topics, such as love and beauty. Nevertheless, Shakespeare presents these themes in his own unique fashion, most notably by addressing the poems of beauty not to a fair maiden, but instead to a young man: ‘‘shall I compare thee to a summer’s day? Thou art more lovely and more temperate” (book). Shakespeare points out that the youth’s beauty is more perfect then the beauty of a summer day. It is also “more temperate”, in other words more gentle, more restrained whereas the summer’s day might have violent excesses in store. At first glance of sonnet 18, it’s pretty much certain that one would think Shakespeare is referring to a woman, not a man. The idea of a man describing another man with such choice of words is always seen with a different eye. Several even stated that Shakespeare is homosexual. Whichever the case may be, Shakespeare painted beauty in the most original matter. He dared to do what everybody else didn’t, or maybe feared to, and accomplished his goal with flying colors. Besides, in his sonnets, Shakespeare states that the young man was made for a woman and urges the man to marry so he can pass on h...
has the gentle heart of a woman but is not inconsistent as is the way
The speaker uses metaphors to describe his mistress’ eyes to being like the sun; her lips being red as coral; cheeks like roses; breast white as snow; and her voices sounding like music. In the first few lines of the sonnet, the speaker view and tells of his mistress as being ugly, as if he was not attracted to her. He give...
In Shakespeare’s Sonnet 18, also known as “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?” represents and discusses the love and beauty of his beloved. Also, the speaker refers to his love more sweet, temperate, and fair than all the beauty that he can see in nature. He also speaks how the sun can be dim and that nature’s beauty is random: “And often is his gold complexion dimm’d / And every fair from fair sometimes declines” (6-7). At the end of the poem the speaker explains that they beauty of the person that is being mentioned is not so short because, his love with live as long as people are still reading this sonnet. The beauty of his beloved with last longer than nature, because although nature is beautiful flowers and other things still have to die: “So long as men can breathe or eyes can see / so long lives this and this gives life to thee” (13-14) Also, the speaker is comparing his love to a summer’s day, but does not really say anything specific or that the qualities given to his beloved are more superior to a summer’s day, which can allow the reader to understand that his beloved can stay young, beautiful, and never going to die.
The simplified argument is an attempt by Shakespeare to persuade his subject to produce an heir. and therefore retain his beauty through his child, to avoid wasting. such a beautiful image. The opening quatrain through use of imagery focuses on the devastating effect that time has on beauty. The opening line deals with time in terms of the seasons, specifically winter.
Sonnet 65 by Shakespeare argues that beauty and youth are illusions as they inevitably fade with the effects of time. The reader is pulled into the age old battle between humanity's desire for immortality and inevitable physical decay. Shakespeare suggests that it is only ideas captured by `black ink' (verses) that have any hope of transcending the test of time. The metaphoric loss of a legal battle by `beauty' against the `rage' of time in the first quatrain is intertwined with images of nature, to reinforce the idea that evading decay is hopeless. Time's metaphoric `battering' of the fortress of youth in the second quatrain warns that not even humanity's strongest attempts at self preservation can prevent mortality. The use of imagery, metaphor, personification, irony, diction, sound patterns, structure and allusion, combine to convey the message that whilst time is all consuming, there is a chance that the immortality of verse will prevail.
This poem speaks of a love that is truer than denoting a woman's physical perfection or her "angelic voice." As those traits are all ones that will fade with time, Shakespeare exclaims his true love by revealing her personality traits that caused his love. Shakespeare suggests that the eyes of the woman he loves are not twinkling like the sun: "My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun" (1). Her hair is compared to a wire: "If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head" (3). These negative comparisons may sound almost unloving, however, Shakespeare proves that the mistress outdistances any goddess. This shows that the poet appreciates her human beauties unlike a Petrarchan sonnet that stresses a woman's cheek as red a rose or her face white as snow. Straying away from the dazzling rhetoric, this Shakespearean poem projects a humane and friendly impression and elicits laughter while expressing a truer love. A Petrarchan sonnet states that love must never change; this poem offers a more genuine expression of love by describing a natural woman.
As each day goes by the beauty of our vibrant youth decays and diminishes. In "Sonnet 15" Shakespeare refers to youth as life at its peak, however this precious point in our life is short-lived. Shakespeare speaks of youth as a single moment of perfection. He glorifies youth and alleges to immortalize it through his poetic words. He uses metaphors, imagery, and rhyme in a way to enhance the beauty and perfection of mans youth while in its prime. Through this he demonstrate the love and richness of youth despite the tole time takes on it.
“Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day” a poem written by William Shakespeare, is the eighteenth sonnet by this famous writer and a poet. Shakespeare, a popular english poet had written fifty four sonnets. “Shall I compare thee to summer’s day” is the most popular of all the fifty four sonnets which emphasized Shakespeare’s love poem with the theme of love. The poem, “If thou must love me” is also a popular poem and a sonnet (number fourteen) written by Elizabeth Barrett Browning. Browning’s poem revolves around the theme of love towards her expectations from her lover to be. Both shakespeare’s and Browning”s poems are completely two different poems but still they share some literary terms in common. Both poems dealt with the same subject matter even though the both described love in their different point of view. Both speakers expresses true natural love and the eternity of true love.
The poet then goes on to say that his beloved is 'more lovely and more temperate (moderate and self-restrained)' than a summer's day. Negative things are said about summer, to contrast it with his beloved. All this relates to the beauty of his beloved male friend. For instance, "Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May" means winds destroy the beautiful buds of May; "And Summer’s lease hath all too short a date" means summer is too short; "Sometimes too hot the eye of heaven shines" means the sun is too hot at times; "And often is his gold complexion dimmed" means and often goes behind the clouds - like you are hiding your beauty. In the Elizabethan Era, fair skin was admired. This line talks about how you could lose this attribute due to ageing. "And every fair from fair sometime declines" means everything beautiful will eventually lose its beauty and "By chance, or nature’s changing course untrimm’d" means by old age or nature's planned course.
In William Shakespeare’s sonnet “shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?” the audience is introduced to a poem in which he himself goes into depth about the person he is infatuated with. The author does not give any type of hints telling the audience who the poem is towards because it can be for both male and female. That’s the interesting part about William Shakespeare’s work which is to second hand guess yourself and thinking otherwise. Making you think and think rational when you read his work. The sonnet “Shall I compare thee to a summers day” is one of his most famous and published poem. Shakespeare’s tone of voice at the commence of the poem is somewhat relaxed and joyful because he is going on talking about the person he is intrigued by. Throughout the passage Metaphors, similes and imagery can all be found in the poem itself
Shakespeare addresses his first 126 sonnets to the same fair man. Sonnet 18, by far one of the most famous of Shakespeare's sonnets, was written to illustrate his love and adoration for the man. "Shall I compare thee to a summer's day? / Thou art more lovely and more temperate" (18.1-2). The first few lines of this sonnet place vivid images in the readers mind about a beautiful and sweet tempered person. Most readers be...
The speaker paints a picture of his lovers’ uninspiring beauty. In the first quatrain by describing his, “mistress’ eyes” (Shakespeare 1) as they, “are nothing like the sun” (Shakespeare