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Theme of Shakespearean sonnets
Discuss themes of Shakespeare sonnets
Shakespeare's use of imagery in his plays
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Although William Shakespeare’s sonnets are generally considered to be among the most beautiful and most powerful poems in the English literature (enotes), this is one of Shakespeare’s most famous, he plays an elaborate joke on the conventions of love poetry, and it is so well-conceived that the joke remains funny today (sparknotes). As I read the sonnet looking at the theme, imagery, and the diction I noticed this particular sonnet ties in with all three almost identically. In this sonnet, Shakespeare will talk about his mistress in a remarkably negative way. But at the end, he loves her and their love is “rare”. The theme in this poem is that beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and to love one another for who they are. Despite his mistress is not perfect and may not look like a goddess, he finds his love special and “rare”. He talks about her eyes being nothing like the sun, her lips not red as coral, her breasts not up to his standards, her cheeks being pale, her hair like wires, and he likes music better than her voice. Even with all these negative things about his love, he still loves to hear her talk. …show more content…
The word and phrases are mainly on the way he describes her. “My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun. Coral is far more red that her lips' red, If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun, If hair be wires, black wires grow on her head, No such roses see I in her cheeks, And some perfumes is there more delight.” ()The woman is certainly not beautiful. Her eyes do not shine, her lips are not a brilliant red, her skin is dull in comparison to pure white snow, and her hair is coarse, she has no color in her cheeks, and she does not smell good. Besides the smell of her breath (not being pleasant) and the non-musical quality of her voice. He still finds her to be his true
This poem opens up the eyes of the reader and teaches us a lesson about life. It is essentially an example of the saying “Don’t judge a book by its cover”. The woman seems so perfect on the outside and for that reason the man wants to be with her, but when he knows that the cover of her book is different from that of most, then he instantly makes up his mind that he won’t even open
The speaker uses metaphors to describe his mistress’ eyes to being like the sun; her lips being red as coral; cheeks like roses; breast white as snow; and her voices sounding like music. In the first few lines of the sonnet, the speaker view and tells of his mistress as being ugly, as if he was not attracted to her. He give...
At the start, the first stanza of the poem is full of flattery. This is the appeal to pathos. The speaker is using the mistress's emotions and vanity to gain her attention. By complimenting her on her beauty and the kind of love she deserves, he's getting her attention. In this first stanza, the speaker claims to agree with the mistress - he says he knows waiting for love provides the best relationships. It feels quasi-Rogerian, as the man is giving credit to the woman's claim, he's trying to see her point of view, he's seemingly compliant. He appears to know what she wants and how she should be loved. This is the appeal to ethos. The speaker seems to understand how relationships work, how much time they can take, and the effort that should be put forth. The woman, if only reading stanza one, would think her and the speaker are in total agreement.
In this collection of sonnets, love is basically and apparently everything. It 's very prevalent in each sonnet contained. It 's easy to see that loving her beloved, her husband, is the one of the ways actually knows she exists. She tries to list the many different types of love that she so obviously feels, and also to figure out the many different types of relationships between these vast and different kinds of love. Through her endeavors, this seems to become a new way of thoroughly expressing her admiration and vast affection for her
When he writes "And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare as any she, belied with false compare." (lines 13-14) in the final couplet, one responds with an enlightened appreciation, making them understand Shakespeare's message that true love consists of something deeper than physical beauty. Shakespeare expresses his ideas in a wonderful fashion. Not only does he express himself through direct interpretation of his sonnet, but also through the levels at which he styled and produced it. One cannot help but appreciate his message of true love over lust, along with his creative criticism of Petrarchan sonnets.
In “Sonnet XVII,” the text begins by expressing the ways in which the narrator does not love, superficially. The narrator is captivated by his object of affection, and her inner beauty is of the upmost significance. The poem shows the narrator’s utter helplessness and vulnerability because it is characterized by raw emotions rather than logic. It then sculpts the image that the love created is so personal that the narrator is alone in his enchantment. Therefore, he is ultimately isolated because no one can fathom the love he is encountering. The narrator unveils his private thoughts, leaving him exposed and susceptible to ridicule and speculation. However, as the sonnet advances toward an end, it displays the true heartfelt description of love and finally shows how two people unite as one in an overwhelming intimacy.
This poem speaks of a love that is truer than denoting a woman's physical perfection or her "angelic voice." As those traits are all ones that will fade with time, Shakespeare exclaims his true love by revealing her personality traits that caused his love. Shakespeare suggests that the eyes of the woman he loves are not twinkling like the sun: "My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun" (1). Her hair is compared to a wire: "If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head" (3). These negative comparisons may sound almost unloving, however, Shakespeare proves that the mistress outdistances any goddess. This shows that the poet appreciates her human beauties unlike a Petrarchan sonnet that stresses a woman's cheek as red a rose or her face white as snow. Straying away from the dazzling rhetoric, this Shakespearean poem projects a humane and friendly impression and elicits laughter while expressing a truer love. A Petrarchan sonnet states that love must never change; this poem offers a more genuine expression of love by describing a natural woman.
There is a defining complication in the sonnet. “This centers on the ambiguity of the term “mistress” which could refer to a husband’s wife, or, as the Oxford English Dictionary suggests, could also mean “[a] woman loved and courted by a man; a female sweetheart” or “[a]woman other than his wife with whom a man has a long-lasting sexual relationship” (Gregory, 2). The poem does not specify if “my love” refers to the speaker’s mistress or to the speaker’s love, his feelings. Shakespeare could be implying that his feelings and his love, are equally as sacred as the supposed love of other lovers that his mistress wrongly compares him
One of the physical attributes, in the first quatrain, that he mentions is his “mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun,” meaning she has no ‘twinkle’ in her eyes. In the first quatrain, he also speaks of coral as being “far more red” than the lips of his mistress; this is a use of imagery to show her non-beauty. He also recognizes that there are “no such roses” on her cheeks in the second quatra...
In Shakespeare’s 60th sonnet, he describes the wrath of time on the life of a person and how it effects someone both positively and negatively as they go through growth and decay. Shakespeare uses the personification of time and the metaphor of light and darkness to show how time can alter a person throughout their growth. Shakespeare wrote this sonnet to a dear friend, but it can be applied to all people everywhere, but he offers hope for his friend that he will be able to write him into history through his poems and beat time.
Shakespeare’s View on Love (A discussion on Shakespeare’s views on love through his sonnets) Several of SHakespeare’s plays have many clashing themes on love. Romeo and Juliet, shows us that love conquers everything, true love is real, and that you have the right to choose who you love. Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream has similar views on love while adding the idea of love at first sight. Throughout his sonnets, you can imply several views on love and it could even be taken to the point of people have the right to love who they wish and gender isn’t a concern.
The ritual of courtly love had rigid codes of conduct associated with it. Shakespeare took his writing to new levels by subtly defying the codes of conduct and relating courtly love to relationships between both two men and a man and a woman. Shakespeare addresses his first 126 sonnets to the same fair man. Sonnet 18, by far one of the most famous of Shakespeare's sonnets, was written to illustrate his love and adoration for the man. Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
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
The speaker paints a picture of his lovers’ uninspiring beauty. In the first quatrain by describing his, “mistress’ eyes” (Shakespeare 1) as they, “are nothing like the sun” (Shakespeare
This description is not of lustrous beauty, but of the true love he felt for her. This statement and