Analysis Of Sonnet 71

Sonnet 71 is one of 154 sonnets written by William Shakespeare, and although it may rank fairly low on the popularity scale, it clearly demonstrates a pessimistic and morbid tone. With the use of metaphors, personification, and imagery this sonnet focuses on the poet’s feelings about his death and how the young should mourn him after he has died. Throughout the sonnet, there appears to be a continual movement of mourning, and with a profound beauty that can only come from Shakespeare. Shakespeare appeals to our emotional sense of “feeling” with imagery words like vile, dead, be forgot, and decay, and we gain a better understanding of the message and feelings dictated by the speaker.

Sonnet 71 follows the typical rhyme scheme of the form, ABAB CDCD EFEF GG and is composed in iambic pentameter. The way the lines rhyme creates a rhythm that lingers in the minds of the readers by flowing flawlessly. Shakespeare use of many doleful sounding adjectives provides us with a better understanding of what the poet is talking about. For example, the poet uses the word “vile” when he’s describing the world which in turn helps us gather the sense that he thinks of the world is evil. During the Renaissance Era, the world was often considered a vile

Shakespeare use of similes here suggests that the speaker views the world as cruel, so cruel that even the worms that crawl through its soil are foul. It also articulates that the speaker is afraid that his reader will be mocked for mourning their relationship. “Lest the wise world should look into your moan.” (Stephen Greenblatt, David and Lewalski) Because the world is a "vile" place, the poet is afraid of the cynics that might laugh, and judge his shortcomings inflicting more sorrow on the reader, whom he fears will be traumatize by