Self Love Analysis

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Recommended: The elements of love in shakespeare sonnets

Isabel Aguayo
Professor Lourence
English 2313
March 25, 2014
Self-Love

In the Sonnets, William Shakespeare expresses the different types of love between a young man and a dark lady. His sonnets briefly describe the importance of love, beauty, and the ravages of time. There are different figures of speech used throughout the sonnets such as, metaphor (an implicit or implied comparison between two things that have common characteristics between one another). In the introductory sonnets, Shakespeare portrays beauty to the young man and urges him to have children, so his beauty can be immortal. This leads to carrying on one’s beauty to leave a memory of an image. However, Shakespeare’s main focus was on the three themes: beauty, love, and the passing time; this demonstrates the importance of beauty from one person to another, by not letting beauty burn itself out through the passing time comes.
In sonnet one, Shakespeare urges a young man to start a family, so his child could preserve his beauty. This sonnet however, is based on the importance to share beauty because it never dies; it only develops. “From fairest creatures we desire increase,” all living things that are beautiful, give an offspring, so it can be desired like all creations (1171). Therefore, the beauty of a rose is perfection, whereas natural beauty is also defined and compared as a rose. In line two, “That thereby beauty’s rose might never die,” the epithet (an adjective or phrase used to distinguish the language of poetry from modern language), “ beauty’s rose” may be an attraction to someone by being in a committed relationship. If there is a connect or attraction, their beauty and love should never die, but reproduce to an offspring (1171). Shakespeare uses “...

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...‘Tis thee, my self, that for myself I praise,
Painting my age with beauty of thy days.
Shakespeare asserts the word “painting” to express the youth’s age. The ‘metaphor’ of the end of the sonnet, is compared to beauty and age. Therefore, one’s beauty does not vanish away by the ravages of time. And, beauty will not matter through the “beated and chapped with tanned antiquity”.
In conclusion, Shakespeare’s theme of each sonnet is divided in different ways. His expression of love is somewhat similar to both the young man’s relationship and the dark lady’s. The relationship alternates between the force of love, beauty, jealousy, time, and obligation. The youth shows his affection, but it seems to be false. Shakespeare uses figure of speech to compare ‘nature’ for the love he has for the “dark lady”. His initial feelings; lust and attraction is processed throughout.

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