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Literary analysis of shakespeare
Shakespeare sonnets importance to british literature
Literary analysis of shakespeare
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Shakespearean sonnets appear to be arranged in three parts; the first third of the sonnets appear to be directing the recipient of the poems to reproduce to endure his legacy, the second third highlight the ability of the immortalizing abilities of the sonnets and with the latter third there is the appearance of a dark haired lady - possibly a tongue-and-cheek humor of the Petrarchan sonnet. Sonnet 147, as one of the latter third sonnets, appears to be directed to the dark haired lady; as a anti-love sonnet, sonnet 147 covers the progression of emotions dealing with the loss of a lover. Shakespeare laments on his woeful state and illustrates clearly, these progression of emotions through the use of rhetorical tools and through metaphorical means by designing the sonnet itself as a fever. In the first line Shakespeare clearly creates an image of his love as a fever, a disease that consumes him and for which the physician can find no cure (line 9). Through a simile in the first line Shakespeare establishes the larger metaphor of the whole sonnet as a fever. Shakespeare would have a strong familiarity with the medical theory and treatments of the era. Early modern medical theory drew strongly from the writings of Hippocrates and the subsequent four humors theory (Garrison 71). The theory of the four humors held that the body was comprised of four basic substances, or humors: black bile, yellow bile, phlegm, and blood. If the humors were out of balance this would result in illness; excess of blood increased the temperature of the body and thus caused fever (Garrison 213). Fittingly, an individual with lots of blood was filled with passion – thus the poets excess in passion has led to his fever. In a secondary, yet supportive manner... ... middle of paper ... ...ion of the truth behind the emotions becomes clear. By the end of the sonnet the speaker is fully over the individual to whom the sonnet is addressed and thus can see the situation with a complete understanding and wisdom of experience. By this means Shakespeare ties in the argument of “The Courtier” as a secondary metaphor to the overall theme of a physical fever. The speakers progression of emotions and the progression of the fever drive the direction of the sonnet. Each quatrain and the final couplet are a step in the progress towards emotional understanding and a break in the fever of love. His lamenting of his woeful state at the beginning of the poem endures feverish madness but ultimately leads to a clear understanding of the truth of the lover while, most importantly for the speaker: providing a means of overcoming the love – of indeed, breaking the fever.
...e speaker admits she is worried and confused when she says, “The sonnet is the story of a woman’s struggle to make choices regarding love.” (14) Her mind is disturbed from the trials of love.
Sonnet 130 is Shakespeare’s harsh yet realistic tribute to his quite ordinary mistress. Conventional love poetry of his time would employ Petrarchan imagery and entertain notions of courtly love. Francis Petrarch, often noted for his perfection of the sonnet form, developed a number of techniques for describing love’s pleasures and torments as well as the beauty of the beloved. While Shakespeare adheres to this form, he undermines it as well. Through the use of deliberately subversive wordplay and exaggerated similes, ambiguous concepts, and adherence to the sonnet form, Shakespeare creates a parody of the traditional love sonnet. Although, in the end, Shakespeare embraces the overall Petrarchan theme of total and consuming love.
The sorrowful love sonnet is written in the Shakespearian style by dividing the sestet into a quatrain and final couplet. The first stanza reflects her love who “must shortly go” (1) bringing the focus to English society during the “bloodshot years” (2) of where an entire generation of young men was lost to the war effort. In the last line of the first stanza the speaker understands the toll on this generation of English people as she remarks that “their numbers will not come again” (4) suggesting the overall loss of young men in England after the war. The second stanza presents the mental strife the speaker is going through, on one hand she is trying to be somewhat reserved and brave for her lover who is about to leave but also to attempt to take in and commit to memory every precious moment with her beloved because she knows it may be “the last of all” (8). In the quatrain the speaker lists the ‘lasts’ and remarks “Even serving love, are our mortalities” (11) suggesting that in serving the love of one’s country in the end it is the people, the everyday populous such as these two lovers who bear the consequences and despair that death brings. In the final couplet the speaker finishes with the comforting thoughts that love knows no bounds. Her love will never end and
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...
In most of the sonnets the form is of three separate quatrains and a closing couplet for emotional and dramatic climax. Some sonnets seem open and addressed to the world. Others are too cryptic and personal to be intelligible. Sonnets 18-125 deal gradually with many themes associate with a handsome young man. The poet enjoys his friendship and promises to immortalize him through his poems.
...r creator, and researchers have attempted to identify the persons who were the original or historical models for the persons the speaker refers to and addresses. The fact remains, however, that we do not know to what degree Shakespeare's personal experiences are reflected in his sonnets; nor do we know with any measure of certainty whether the persons depicted in these poems are based on specific individuals or are solely the product of Shakespeare's observation, imagination, and understanding of the human heart.
Shakespeare’s sonnets are numbered in a sequential order and adjacent sonnets often have similar content. Throughout Shakespeare’s sonnets, he covers many subjects, such as interest in the life of a young man, his love for a young man, and his love for a dark haired woman. In sonnets 57 and 58, Shakespeare discusses how love is like slavery in its different manifestations. The object of the narrator’s love has a dominating power over the narrator, which controls him and guides his actions. Shakespeare shows in sonnets 57 and 58 that love can be displayed by using many different routes such as viewing love as a controlling force, exploring the theme of time and waiting in regards to love, and the question of the physical state of being of love.
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.
William Shakespeare was an excellent writer, who throughout his life created well written pieces of literatures which are valued and learned about in modern times. One of his many works are 154 Sonnets, within these Sonnets there are several people Shakespeare “writes to”, such as fair youth, dark lady and rival poet. Sonnet 20 is written to fair youth, or in other words a young man. The idea of homosexuality appears in Sonnet 20 after the speaker admits his love towards the young man.
In Sonnet number one-hundred sixteen Shakespeare deals with the characteristics of a love that is “not time’s fool”, that true love that will last through all (Ln: 9). This sonnet uses the traditional Shakespearian structure of three quatrains and a couplet, along with a standard rhyme scheme. The first and third quatrains deal with the idea that love is “an ever-fixed mark”, something that does not end or change over time (Ln: 5). Shakespeare illustrates this characteristic of constancy through images of love resisting movemen...
This sonnet rhymed abab cdcd efef gg form. Most of his sonnets were written in the 1590s at the height of the vogue, but they were not published until 1609. The first 126 are addressed to a young man; the remainder (with the exception of the last two, which are conventional sonnets on Cupid) are addressed to an unknown "Dark Lady." Whether or not Shakespeare laid bare his heart in his sonnets, as many critics have contended, they are his most personal poems.
This Shakespearean sonnet consisting of 14 lines can be subdivided into 3 parts. In each part, the poet uses a different voice. He uses 1st person in the first part, 3rd person in the 2nd part and 2nd person in the last part. Each section of the poem has a different theme that contributes to the whole theme of the poem.
...ays him. He tricks himself into believing that he and his friend are such kindred spirits that they are truly one in mind, body and spirit, when in fact, they are not. The final line of the sonnet begins with an initial spondee, "Sweet flattery" (14) in which Shakespeare himself is admitting how sweet delusion really is, and ends in a terminal spondee, "me alone" (14) showing that the young man and Shakespeare were really never more than acquaintances that loved the same woman.] Through a figment of his imagination, he developed a mythical relationship with the young man when in fact, the only really loving relationship he had was with his own pretentious subconscious.
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
Overall the images representing the speakers past give the idea that its not easy for the speaker to face his destiny alone. The fourteen line sonnet is constructed of three quatrains and one couplet. With the organization of the poem, Shakespeare works out a different idea in each of the three quatrains as he writes the sonnet to lend itself naturally. Each of the quatrain contains a pair of images that create one universal idea in the quatrain.