An Analysis of Shakespeare's Sonnet 116

544 Words2 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Sonnet 1 william shakespeare analysis

An Analysis of Shakespeare's Sonnet 116

Shakespeare's Sonnet 116, denying Time's harvest of love, contains 46 iambic, 15 spondaic, 6 pyrrhic, and 3 trochaic feet. Like the varying magnitudes of stars that distinguish the sky's constellations, infused with myths describing all degrees and types of love, the spondaic, trochaic, and pyrrhic substitutions create a pattern of meaning that can be inferred by the discerning eye and mind. Shakespeare emphasizes his denial of the effects of Time on love by accenting "not" in lines 1, 2, 9, and 11, and "no" in lines 5 and 14. The forceful spondees at the beginning and the regular iambic feet at the end of each quatrain progressively build the poet's passionate rejection of love's transience. Quatrains 1 and 3, declaring what love cannot be, enfold his definition of love in Quatrain 2. The spondee, "It is," draws attention to the word "star" and the poem's essential metaphor, equating love and the North Star, at the poem's heart in lines 7 and 8. This figure of speech implies that while one can feel the intensity of one's love, i.e. measur...

Show More
Related

  • Graffiti Artist Identity Essay

    995 Words  | 2 Pages

    The identity of a graffiti artist is hardly ever known unless they want to tag their art with their name or a nickname. Graffiti writers as a subculture are trying to express their political views through civil disobedience by painting pictures that speak out against the government. This subculture developed because they were tired of being oppressed by the government. Graffiti is one of the most enduring acts of protest. It is an important tool for the resistance movement as a way to publicize their protest. It is a visible and powerful form of protest that is going to promote change in the social justice by allowing oppressed groups of people express their viewpoints without being penalized by the

    Read More

  • The Issue of Medical Futility in Modern Practices

    596 Words  | 2 Pages

    Ashley Bassel argues because the courts decided that futility issues are not to believe resolved in court there is a bioethical issue of who is able to make the decision to resolve this dispute. 90% of hospital has a full ethics committee or small team that supposed to perform an ethics consultation. According to the AMA the function of the committee should help to resolve unusual and complicated ethical problems that affect the care and treatment of patients. However whatever the ethic committees says are recommendations not obligations for the institution. However there are many scenarios where these ethics board are unable to solve the tricky problem of upholding the patient or guardian right to make medical decisions as well as the physician’s right to refuse treatment. As well as the case making sure that conflicts on interest to not impede on any ability to make the proper call on a patient health.

    Read More

  • Free College Essays - Analysis of Shakespeare's Sonnet 75

    948 Words  | 2 Pages

    The sonnet opens with a seemingly joyous and innocent tribute to the young friend who is vital to the poet's emotional well being. However, the poet quickly establishes the negative aspect of his dependence on his beloved, and the complimentary metaphor that the friend is food for his soul decays into ugly imagery of the poet alternating between starving and gorging himself on that food. The poet is disgusted and frightened by his dependence on the young friend. He is consumed by guilt over his passion. Words with implicit sexual meanings permeate the sonnet -- "enjoyer", "treasure", "pursuing", "possessing", "had" -- as do allusions to five of the seven "deadly" sins -- avarice (4), gluttony (9, 14), pride (5), lust (12), and envy (6).

    Read More

  • Free Essay: Analysis of Sonnet 12

    372 Words  | 1 Pages

    This is an enjoyable sonnet that uses nature imagery, found extensively in Petrarca, that Shakespeare uses to get his point across. Not much explication is needed, aside the sustained images of nature, to fully understand its intent, but I would like to point out a peculiar allusion. When reading line 3, "the violet past prime" has made me think of Venus and Adonis. In the end, Adonis melts into the earth and a violet sprouts where his body was, which Venus then places in her heart, signifying the love she has for him. Reading this into the poem makes the few following lines more significant. Having Adonis portrayed as the handsome youth, Shakespeare is alluding to the death of youth (in general and to the young man) through the sonnet. In the next line, it is not certain if "sable" is an adjective or a noun and if "curls" is a noun, referring to hair (which is plausible) or a verb modifying "sable." Invoking the allusion to Adonis here, Shakespeare portends that if Adonis did live longer, he too would have greying hair; thus, Shakespeare sees ["behold"] an Adonis figure, the young man, past his youth.

    Read More

  • Free Essays On Shakespeare's Sonnet 97

    388 Words  | 1 Pages

    What a beginning to a great sonnet. This sonnet, understood quite will in the first quatrain, presents a few difficulties throughout the second and third quatrains. This is obviously addressed to a loved one, more specifically a woman who Shakespeare loved. 5: 'This period of separation from you was due to summer', where "summer's time" signifies his youth, moreover, his sexual prime. 6: 'Overflowing autumn [his middle age] is rich with children produced from luxuriant [or frolicsome] experiences of my youth'. Line 8 closes this quatrain with a more happy than mournful meaning, for the widowed reveres the child even more after the father's death. In line 9, I read "abundant issue" as 'topic of general debate or concern', referring to the "lords' decease" in line 8, but it could also mean a person capable of bearing many children, either the addressee or the woman of his prime, or even Shakespeare himself. If the first, then it is addressed to more than one person and is a result of his absence--he is not able to produce children, only obtain orphans. But if the second, it modifies his hope for orphans. If Shakespeare is the "abundant issue" then this is a fine reading; however, if the "abundant issue" is the child of the widow, this poses a problem because it faults logic to say that the mother is widowed "Yet" her child is an orphan.

    Read More

  • Graffiti is a Beautiful Crime

    1297 Words  | 3 Pages

    Graffiti is a form of art that people use to express themselves and to convey various messages to people in a particular community. In the movie "Graffiti Verite':. One of the graffiti artist explained that his purpose in doing graffiti is that it allows him to "express his anger' on the wall. Another kid by the name of "Jipsie" said that graffiti is a "form of growth". There were several different explanations that artists shared as well as several different reasons why they like graffiti. The common theme among the graffiti artist and taggers was that graffiti is simply a form of self-expression (Bryan). At the end of the film one tagger made a comment and said, "graffiti is not vandalism, but it is a beautiful crime". This comment did not make sense to me. Committing a crime, a hideous act, is not a beautiful thing to do by any means. Graffiti does not mean people can go around and draw and spray paint on other peoples property. Regardless of what types of graffiti are being expressed by the tagger, this type of self expression is considered vandalism when people decide to draw, destroy, or violate any persons property without consent. As a result of taggers committing the crime of vandalism, property owners, concerned citizens, and law enforcement officers spend too much time, money, and energy trying to put an end to the unlawful act of vandalism.

    Read More

  • Analysis of Shakespeare's Sonnet 20

    1228 Words  | 3 Pages

    has the gentle heart of a woman but is not inconsistent as is the way

    Read More

  • Critical Analysis of Sonnet 29 by William Shakespeare

    2546 Words  | 6 Pages

    William Shakespeare (1564-1616) lived in a time of religious turbulence. During the Renaissance people began to move away from the Church. Authors began to focus on the morals of the individual and on less lofty ideals than those of the Middle Ages. Shakespeare wrote one-hundred fifty-four sonnets during his lifetime. Within these sonnets he largely explored romantic love, not the love of God. In Sonnet 29 Shakespeare uses specific word choice and rhyme to show the reader that it is easy to be hopeful when life is going well, but love is always there, for rich and poor alike, even when religion fails.

    Read More

  • Art Essay On Graffiti

    1069 Words  | 3 Pages

    Graffiti is a beautiful art that expresses feeling and emotions. However, people think of it differently. Is it a crime or an art? Those talented people, young or old, a teenage, a child or an adult, have a passion for making graffiti art on street walls a...

    Read More

  • An Analysis of Shakespeare's Sonnet 73

    1257 Words  | 3 Pages

    Sonnet 73 by William Shakespeare is widely read and studied. But what is Shakespeare  trying to say? Though it seems there will not be a simple answer, for a better understanding of Shakespeare's Sonnet 73, this essay offers an explication of the sonnet from The Norton Anthology of English Literature:

    Read More

  • Explication Of Shakespeare's Sonnet 3

    406 Words  | 1 Pages

    In Shakespeare's sonnet #3, he is writing to tell the recipient of the sonnet that he must have children if he wants his legacy to live on after he dies. Lines 5 and 6 read "For where is she so fair whose unear'd womb/ Disdains the tillage of thy husbandry?," indicating that this man to whom Shakespeare is writing must have children or his lineage ends; there will be no more speak of him after he is gone. He goes on to say that children are just like their parents so therefore, having a child will allow a parent to have his time living mean something. This point is demonstrated in the closing line. Shakespeare says "Die single and thine image dies with thee." From what seems like a common theme in many of his sonnets, Shakespeare urges his

    Read More

  • Free Essays On Shakespeare's Sonnet 154

    414 Words  | 1 Pages

    This sonnet appears to be another version of 153 rather than one of a series. These two sonnets, two renderings of the same ides, could either prove or disprove Shakespeare's authorship. Only twice did Shakespeare rewrite any of his sonnets, both 138 and 144 appear slightly modified in _The Passionate Pilgrim_. These are evidence of Shakespeare's rewritings, but the only problem is if one is out to prove the authorship on these grounds, over-revision remains a factor; that is, Shakespeare rewrote the two sonnets changing only a few words and not the entire sonnet. These seem to be the problems with citing Shakespeaare as their author, but equally disproving him as the author. If I were to argue for Shakespeare's authorship, I would correlate "the help of bath" with being an allusion to "The Wife of Bath's Tale" in Chaucer's _Canterbury Tales_. Shakespeare used Chaucer as a source in _A Midsummer Night's Dream_ (from "The Kinght's Tale" and "The Miller's Tale"), _Troilus and Cressida_ (from _Troilus and Criseyde) and _The Two Noble Kinsmen_ (from "The Knight's Tale"). Seeing that Shakespeare used Chaucer as a reference in the past for help, I suppose "the help of bath" could be a tribut to Chaucer and thus a possible source or allusion. But this does remain on unsubstantial grounds due to the possibility of it simply meaning a water-filled basin.

    Read More

  • Graffiti Essay

    905 Words  | 2 Pages

    Graffiti started in the 1920s when gangs would tag train cars and walls to mark territory mainly in New York City. Graffiti took a different turn in the 1970s when young adults decided to use street art as an outlet to express their political and social outrage. This movement had soon gained the attention of the “adult” world. Graffiti was known as “creation through destruction” and to this day is still considered illegal in most parts of the world. In modern street art the mediums used have evolved past spray paint and now artists are using different methods with spray paint to progress their works past crude tags. Common mediums used are stencils, prints, and murals. Graffiti is often considered to be art because of new artists, such as

    Read More

  • Shakespeare's Love To The Dark Lady Analysis

    979 Words  | 2 Pages

    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

    Read More

  • Unraveling the Depths of Shakespeare's Sonnet 88

    382 Words  | 1 Pages

    A good example of the octave/sestet division is seen in this sonnet. This poem, although slightly past the rival poet sequence, can be read, I feel, as addressed to the rival poet. In the octave, words such as "merit" and "virtuous", coupled with line 6 suggest an addressee of the same profession. But it very well may be said it is simply of friendship, reading line 4 as 'and prove that you are right, although you are renouncing our friendship'. In the second quatrain, Shakespeare supposes he can write a story on the friend's impairment of their relationship. 10-12: 'If by concentrating all my loving thoughts towards you, the injuries, as a result of my thought, that I will inflict upon myself, do prove to be advantageous to you, but twice that to me'. It is difficult to say whether "double" is hyperbolical or if it has some abstruse mathematical conceit (as seen in sonnet 6, lines 5-10). It does reflect upon "gainer" in line 9, which supports the reading of any gain to the friend as a gain to the poet (Shakespeare). 13-14: 'This is the way my love is, and I belong to you in the same respect that I will bear all wrongdoing in order to place you in the

    Read More

More about An Analysis of Shakespeare's Sonnet 116

Open Document