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Shakespearean sonnets differences and similarities between 2,5 answers
Compare two sonnets by Shakespeare
Shakespearean sonnets differences and similarities between 2,5 answers
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The sonnet is a form of poetry that is vastly used among poets. There are usually two types of sonnets in poetry, the Shakespearean sonnet and the Italian sonnet. Sonnets are typically defined as poems made up of 14 lines that rhyme in a specific way. William Butler Yeats’ “Leda and the Swan” is an example of an Italian sonnet. It consists of 14 lines and the rhyme scheme is ABABCDCDEFGEFG. In his poem, Yeats’ uses the sonnet form in many traditional ways. However Yeats’ also revises the sonnet form in order to help readers understand the main theme of the poem, which is rape.
The poem starts off very surprising. In the first stanza, the speaker says, “A sudden blow: the great wings still/ Above the staggering girl, her thighs caressed/ By the dark webs, her nape caught in his bill/ He holds her helpless breast upon his breast” (1-4). Right away the speaker seems surprised. The girl wasn’t expecting a blow anytime soon and was knocked down. She seems disoriented and unsure of what’s going on. The bird is described as having “great wings.” This diction makes him seem powerful. Furthermore, he is above Leda and starts caressing her thighs. She seems helpless at this point. In line three of the poem, the swan grabs her neck with his bill. Then, he holds her closer so that their breasts can touch. The language here creates a very intimate setting. In addition to that, Leda’s breast is described as helpless. It seems that she can’t do anything and must let the rape continue. The way the poem is being told in the first stanza seems to allude to the myth of Leda and the Swan in Greek mythology. It seems that Yeats’ wants to portray the swan as the Greek god Zeus in the poem. In the second stanza, the speaker asks two questions. The spe...
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...tead of foreshadowing the future. The speaker wonders if she knew what was going on while she was being raped and the consequences of Zeus’ actions. Furthermore, since this is an Italian sonnet, it is divided into two sections. The first section consists of the first eight lines and is called the octave. The second section is called the subset and consists of the final six lines of the poem. In the poem, the first part talks about Leda being raped by the powerful swan. She is helpless and even though she struggles, she cannot escape. This part of the poem focuses on Leda’s view of the situation. In the subset, the swan finally finishes raping Leda and the poem moves on to address what exactly has happened. In the subset, the speaker narrates the consequences of the rape. These consequences include the burning of the city of Troy and the Trojan War.
In conclusion,
Readers of Keats’ poetry have long spoken of the enchanting power of his language, and in one of his most famous works, “The Eve of St. Agnes”; the reader is positively enchanted by the protagonist, Madeline. She’s pure, virginal, positively otherworldly, and “seem’d a splendid angel, newly drest” (Keats 77). Madeline also displays trappings of religious symbols throughout the work. She is called a “Mission’d spirit and a “seraph fair” (Keats 72-3). The reader could scarcely read the poem without immediately associating Madeline with the most divine cherubs in Heaven. Her virginity is repeatedly mentioned and referenced; even her room, or the maiden’s chamber, is “silken, hush’d, and chaste” (Keats 76). Young Porphyro with “heart on fire” for Madeline simply couldn’t resist this angel (Keats 71). One might connect that, similarly, young John Keats could not resist his own angel, Fanny Brawne. At the time of the composition of “The Eve of St. Agnes” Keats was heavy in the thralls of his engagement to Fanny. In her book, John Keats: The Making of a Poet, Aileen Ward proclaims “The Eve of St. Agnes” to be "the first confident flush of [Keats's] love for Fanny Brawne" (Ward 310). However, if Madeline is meant to be a manifestation of Fanny Brawne, Keats must not think of his fiancé as merely an angel, but something more.
In Yeats' poem, Leda and the Swan, Yeats explores the idea of Divine punishment in using the result of Leda's rape as his subject. The offspring Leda produced represents the Divine punishment of the story. In the story, Leda is raped by a swan, which represents Zeus, the most powerful Greek God. The consequences of this rape includes two children, Helen and Clytemnestra who later marry and experience the fall of the Trojan empire and the killing of Agamemnon, Clytemnestra's husband. The story of Leda and the Swan creates a vivid portrait of a rape between an all-powerful swan and Leda, the Spartan Queen. It is peculiar that two such powerful individuals are the subjects of the horrendous act of rape. Zeus is the most powerful of all gods, and Leda herself has great power, being the Queen of Sparta. Aside from this however, lies another topic, which Yeats attempts to explore, and that is the idea of Divine punishment. The mere thought of punishment from the Divine, meaning God, is the reason why Leda allows the Swan to continue the rape without a great deal of fight. Yeats writes, "Being so caught up, so mastered by the brute blood of the air, did she put on his knowledge with his power before the indifferent beak could let her drop?" (Kuehn 140). Here, Leda must choose whether or not she should put all of her power in Zeus, knowing that he has harmed her. Her action to not resist the force leads to the Divine punishment.
This juxtaposition is what leads the reader to understand the true meaning of the poem. For example, “Danae” is a “vessel” for “Jove” (lines 56). Danae is belittled to an object and claimed by Jove while Jove remains “golden” and godly. In lines seven and eight, “Jove the Bull” “bore away” at “Europa”. “Bore”, meaning to make a hole in something, emphasises the violent sexual imagery perpetrated in this poem. Jove disguises himself as a bull in order to take Europa away to Crete so he can rape her. Not only that, but she becomes pregnant afterwards and “bore” a child. Europa was physically “away” from her home because Jove had stolen her, but Jove “bore away” at her physically as well as emotionally. Finally, in line 8, the “Swan’s featherless bride” refers to Leda, who was raped by Zeus in the form of a swan. Not only is she not mentioned by name but she is owned by the “Swan” as demonstrated by the possessive noun. While the other women had minor historical context, Leda is reduced to three words. Not only that but Jove 's violence against the women increase with every name, Leda being alluded to last drives home the pain he
It is confusing, confounding, and captivating. Leda and the Swan is the epitome of Twombly’s ability to assume the role of his subject through Abstract Expressionist art. A reading of the work on the same myth by W.B. Yeats proves that art is, albeit subjective, universally felt. Both artists managed to make of Leda’s plight in disparate but equally powerful ways. Where Yeats relied on the literal translation of words, Twombly communicated anguish through mayhem and havoc. His piece, presented to intentionally ambush viewers, is eminent of his belief that strong representation is not needed to evoke universal themes of sadness, struggle, and helplessness. Twombly perhaps says it best himself: “the meaning of the work is in the doing of it” (Ulaby,
Holstad, Scott C. , "Yeats's 'Leda and the Swan': Psycho-Sexual Therapy in Action". n.pag. On-line. AOL. 23 Sept. 2003.
In these lines from "All Things can Tempt Me" (40, 1-5), Yeats defines the limitations of the poet concerning his role in present time. These "temptations" (his love for the woman, Maude Gonne, and his desire to advance the Irish Cultural Nationalist movement) provide Yeats with the foundation upon which he identifies his own limitations. In his love poetry, he not only expresses his love for Gonne, he uses his verse to influence her feelings, attempting to gain her love and understanding. In regard to the Nationalists, he incorporates traditional Irish characters, such as Fergus and the Druids, to create an Irish mythology and thereby foster a national Irish identity. After the division of the Cultural Nationalists, Yeats feels left behind by the movement and disillusioned with their violent, "foolish" methods. He is also repeatedly rejected by Gonne. These efforts to instigate change through poetry both fail, bringing the function of the poet and his poetry into question. If these unfruitful poems tempt him from his ?craft of verse,? then what is the true nature verse and why is it a ?toil? for the poet? Also, if Yeats cannot use poetry to influence the world around him, then what is his role as a poet?
The speaker's shame at her cowardice is clear in the second stanza as she describes how she "lay on the ground and wept" (5). It is at this point that Bogan introduces another symbol in the poem, a woman who "leapt for the rein" (6). The stranger's strength and cour...
...a definite and recognizable pattern. This poem is certainly not a sonnet, either in subject matter, meaning, or format. The rhyme scheme for this poem is that of A B B A, C D D C, E F F E, G H H G. There is enough continuity in this rhyme scheme to hold the poem together as a whole through the use of the pattern, however the changing of the actual rhyming words and the fact that, for instance, the A word is only repeated one time (as are all of the others) intensifies the poets feelings of loss over the change in his love's desires. Through the rhyming scheme, the poet is conveying the hopelessness of the two of them getting back together and repeating the beautiful love they once shared.
The myth Leda and the Swan has been used by artists for inspiration since it was known. It invokes powerful feelings in us because of its representation between men and women. It makes us think about the relationship between men a women though out history. Artwork of Leda and the Swan also brings to the mind the question of what types of displays of affection are appropriate to be seen. Myths were written by men and for men, this is reflected the artwork we see of Leda and the Swan. The art changes though history and reflects the attitudes of men towards women form each time period the piece is from. Leda and the Swan shows us how men think about women, and also how society thinks about
... imagery, as both meanings could describe Keats longing, as he could wish to remain for as long as possible in the embrace of his lover, but also how he could wish to continue to hear her ‘tender-taken breath’, in which the alliteration portrays his lover as beautiful and inviting, further showing how Keats now prefers the life of reality. He forgets about the impossible, and being immortal and being alone, but rather embraces the temporary and exhilarating.
A sonnet is a fixed patterned poem that expresses a single, complete thought or idea. Sonnet comes from the Italian word “sonetto”, which means “little song”. Poem, on the other hand, is English writing that has figurative language, and written in separate lines that usually have a repeated rhyme, but don’t all the time. The main and interesting thing is that these two poems or sonnets admire and compare the beauty of a specific woman, with tone, repetition, imagery, and sense of sound.
Sonnet 18 and Sonnet 130, by William Shakespeare, are two of the most well known Shakespeare sonnets. Both are similar in theme, however, the two poems are very much contradictory in style, purpose, and the muse to who Shakespeare is writing.
Bender, Robert M., and Charles L. Squier, eds. The Sonnet: An Anthology. New York: Washington Square P, 1987.
The importance of this book is that it contains some of the works of poetry which were carried out by William Yeats. Arguably, the most salient feature in the book is the attempt at portraying the shift that characterized Yeats in his work, so that his works are arranged almost chronologically to underscore this standpoint. Works that depict him as a bard of the Celtic Twilight, reviving Rosicrucian symbols and legends are the most frontal. These are followed up by works which show the shift away from plush romanticism. The same are exhibited by the heavy presence of incantatory rhythms such as “I will arise and go… and go to Innisfree”. The same is seen in the lyrics, “as passionate and cold as the dawn”.
Shakespeare sonnets, also called English sonnets, are the second most common sonnets. It takes the structure of three quatrains, that is, three stanzas with four lines and a couplet that is a two line stanza. The couplet stanza is pivotal in the sonnet, because it provides amplification, a refutation or a conclusion of the other three stanzas, which creates an epiphany for the sonnet. The other kind of sonnet is the Spenserian, which has the first 12 lines rhyming into a, b, c and d, while the last stanza, which is a couplet has the rhyme, ee. The three quatrains provide detail about three but related ideas while the couplet gives rise to a totally different idea (Petrarca & ...