Shakespeare's Exploration in Sonnet 2 of the Themes of Age and Beauty · Look closely at effects of language, imagery and handling of the sonnet form. * Comment on ways in which the poem’s methods and concerns are characteristic of other Shakespeare sonnets you have studied. The second of Shakespeare’s sonnets conveys an argument the poet is making somewhat implicitly to a subject whose identity is hazy and unknown to the reader, even in retrospect. The simplified argument is an attempt by Shakespeare to persuade his subject to produce an heir and therefore retain his beauty through his child, to avoid wasting such beauty. The opening quatrain through use of imagery focuses on the devastating effect that time has on beauty. The opening line deals with time in terms of seasons, specifically winter. The imagery associated with winter is possibly the most negative of all the seasons, and an immediate sense of harshness and coldness arises, which has negative connotations with the idea of time. The word ‘besiege’, in a sense personifies time as the enemy and furthermore is effective through the physical images it evokes. This has the effect of making the image vivid for the reader as he can almost visualise the conflict. The effect of the military imagery emphasised through words such as ‘besiege’ and ‘trenches ‘backs this idea further and suggests almost there is an ongoing war against time. This is additionally reflected through ‘dig deep’, which through the use of alliteration brings the readers’ attention to the specific language and stresses the idea of the physical force of time. It further suggests via its rhythmic s... ... middle of paper ... ...nnets self-consciously back to his verse. Generally those sonnets I have studied rely on the iambic sonnet form, a means for Shakespeare to order his arguments – as it seems fundamentally that all his sonnets are a means to discuss and conclude on a question in the writer’s mind. Further reflecting this ordered logical method, hidden under the elaborate language is legal imagery; specifically sonnet 30 with words such as ‘session’, ‘summon’. The formality helps create a thought process for the reader. Through similar and repeated methods, routing in linguistic effects, the use of the sonnet form and imagery, Shakespeare helps create a map of the questions in his mind and conveys different themes and concepts forcing the reader to reflect upon the ideas he feels relevant to both his own emotions and everyday life.
The sonnets written by Shakespeare in the Elizabethan era were written to challenge the unrealistic view of women in the Petrarchan sonnets, and this is visible through Shakespeare’s use of the English Sonnet. An English Sonnet consists of fourteen lines, each line containing ten syllables and written in Iambic Pentameter, in which a pattern of an un-emphasized syllable followed by an emphasized syllable is repeated five times. The rhyme scheme in a Shakespearean sonnet is ABABCDCDEFEF GG; the last two lines being a rhyming couplet. The sonnets show the contrast between Shakespeare’s English sonnet and Petrarch’s Italian sonnet. Before Shakespeare created the English sonnet from its Italian counterpart, many poets used the latter until the former was conceived. Shakespeare further developed the English sonnet form to create pieces like ‘Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day’ and ‘Let me not to the marriage of true minds,’ sonnets that used a structure similar to Iambic ...
“Sonnet Eighteen” was one of the first of the Sonnets to become very well known. It “sets a fearful problem in turning it into prose”, because it is so straight forward and easy to comprehend (Rowse 39). Throughout this poem, the reader will acknowledge that Shakespeare “finds the human beauty “more lovely” and more lasting than nature’s” (Kastan 10). In the Sonnet, Shakespeare is comparing a woman to a summer’s day. He uses imagery to differentiate the harshness of summer and beauty of the woman. The audience can see the speaker’s perspective of youth and beauty throughout the lines in the
The first image of her love tells us that her love has no bounds and
This is an enjoyable sonnet that uses nature imagery, found extensively in Petrarca, that Shakespeare uses to get his point across. Not much explication is needed, aside the sustained images of nature, to fully understand its intent, but I would like to point out a peculiar allusion. When reading line 3, "the violet past prime" has made me think of Venus and Adonis. In the end, Adonis melts into the earth and a violet sprouts where his body was, which Venus then places in her heart, signifying the love she has for him. Reading this into the poem makes the few following lines more significant. Having Adonis portrayed as the handsome youth, Shakespeare is alluding to the death of youth (in general and to the young man) through the sonnet. In the next line, it is not certain if "sable" is an adjective or a noun and if "curls" is a noun, referring to hair (which is plausible) or a verb modifying "sable." Invoking the allusion to Adonis here, Shakespeare portends that if Adonis did live longer, he too would have greying hair; thus, Shakespeare sees ["behold"] an Adonis figure, the young man, past his youth.
"Sonnet 95" of Shakespeare's "blond young man" sonnets depicts a tension-filled variation on the classic blazon. The poet seems torn between the "shame" (1) that taints his subject and the "sweets" (4) of the subject 's beauty. The initial imagery of a "canker" (2) within a "rose" (2) serves to set up the sexual overtones that dominate the poem, as well as to create the sense of strain between disapproval and attraction that heightens throughout each quatrain. Shakespeare develops this imagery to ensnare the subject in an increasingly agitated opposition between his physical beauty and his behavioral repulsiveness. Though the poet claims that he "cannot dispraise but in a kind of praise" (7), the closing couplet goes counter this, bringing the sense of antagonism between the poet 's admiration and his disapproval full circle. The couplet serves as a warning that the physical beauty and virility that have dominated the young man 's life will end, destroying the "mansion" (9) where he hid his moral failing through the quatrains.
The first quatrain of the sonnet introduces the mistress' eyes "which are nothing like the sun" (line 1). It is very straightforward and may be viewed as harsh, but one can feel an initial powerful energy supported by the rest of the lines of the quatrain. The readers will see that the contrast of the beautiful images in nature is readily established in the first quatrain. The line "If snow be white, why then her breast are dun" (line 3) signifies that her mistress' breast are not as white as that of a snow. On the same note, the speaker contrasts the redness of her lips as nothing as that of a coral (line 2) and that his mistress has "wires" for hair - all of these may be viewed as a form of a mockery.
1-2: 'I do not draw my conclusions from the stars, and yet I think I understand astrology; 3-4: 'but (astrology) has never forecasted (to me) good or bad luck, or of plagues, or of dearths, or of the quality of the forecoming seasons:' 5-6: 'Nor can I prognosticate (from the stars) every single minute, assigning to each minute [that is, whether or not it will] thunder or rain or wind,' 7-8: 'Or say that all will be well by signs (of the stars), which looking to the sky (for answers) is my habit:' 9-10: 'only from your eyes do I form my knowledge, and, in your eyes (which are constant stars), do I see such art' 11-12: 'As truth or beauty thriving together, if you would convert from yourself to store [as in store cattle]:' The paraphrase for the three quatrains may not seem necessary, as it is fairly straightfoward in its meaning; however, the couplet provides ambiguity. The couplet is where Shakespeare usually makes an antithesis of the three quatrains or presents some ambiguity, the latter of which is this one. I have found
“Sonnet 18”, decidedly the most celebrated of Shakespeare’s 154, was written in the early 17th century. It consists of 14 lines in iambic pentameter, each comprising of ten syllables, and utilizes the rhyming scheme abab, cdcd, efef, gg. It is typical of the sonnets written during that time period, both in its format and content. “Sonnet 18” deals with love’s relation to beauty, as well as immortalization of love and beauty through poetry. In the first two lines, Shakespeare compares the beauty of a young person, to a summer’s day. He states that the subject of the poem is in fact lovelier and “more temperate” (Shakespeare 2). In lines 3-6, he illustrates the subject’s perfection by saying that he is not affected by the flaws of summer, such as its brevity and uneven temperatures. In the following few lines, Shakespeare remarks that although everything beautiful will at some point fade away, the beauty of the subject will last forever. The beauty, and Shakespeare’s love of it, will exist forever in the lines of the sonnet. Shakespeare effectively communicates the message of the sonnet through elaborate use of literary devices, mainly metaphors. He does not use any similes; therefore the comparisons he makes are not always apparent. One of the more evident comparisons can be seen in the very first lines of the poem. “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?/Thou art more lovely and more temperate” (Shakespeare 1-2). Here, Shakespeare makes his contrast of the summer and the subject obvious to the reader. In line 5, he uses a metaphor to describe the weather during summer: “Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines” (Shakespeare 5). In this metaphor the “eye of heaven” is the sun. He uses personification in the following line: “And o...
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 his Sonnets, Shakespeare explores the nature of time and different methods of overcoming the erasure that time causes. He identifies procreation through both reproduction and publication as the most successful agents for preservation. Shakespeare wastes no time revealing his preoccupation with the passing of time and its potential to erase both a person’s beauty and his or her legacy. Starting with Sonnet 1, he states his purpose in finding a way to combat time so “that thereby beauty’s rose might never die” (1). He wishes to overcome the mortality of the human condition by preserving beauty and memory. This desire to immortalize his subjects pervades the Sonnets as he engages in a verbal battle against time by using his artillery of words as a means of disrupting time’s never-ending cycle. As the Sonnets progress, Shakespeare’s attitude toward time matures but only after he has discovered an effective and reliable mean of countering time’s erasure: his verse. He takes the endurance of his and his Golden Youth’s legacy into his own hands, literally, as he brings his quill to scroll and records his memories through the lasting medium of the written word. In this essay I will argue that Shakespeare uses his Sonnets as a means of preserving the legacy of his beloved Golden Youth, and, on a broader scale, erects poetic monuments that will endure time’s erasure and preserve their subject’s legacy for all of time.
has the gentle heart of a woman but is not inconsistent as is the way
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...
Sonnet 73 by William Shakespeare is widely read and studied. But what is Shakespeare trying to say? Though it seems there will not be a simple answer, for a better understanding of Shakespeare's Sonnet 73, this essay offers an explication of the sonnet from The Norton Anthology of English Literature:
During the Renaissance period, most poets were writing love poems about their lovers/mistresses. The poets of this time often compared love to high, unrealistic, and unattainable beauty. Shakespeare, in his sonnet 18, continues the tradition of his time by comparing the speakers' love/mistress to the summer time of the year. It is during this time of the year that the flowers and the nature that surround them are at there peak for beauty. The theme of the poem is to show the speakers true interpretation of beauty. Beauties worst enemy is time and although beauty might fade it can still live on through a person's memory or words of a poem. The speaker realizes that beauty, like the subject of the poem, will remain perfect not in the eyes of the beholder but the eyes of those who read the poem. The idea of beauty living through the words of a poem is tactfully reinforced throughout the poem using linking devices such as similes and metaphors.
William Shakespeare (1564-1616) lived in a time of religious turbulence. During the Renaissance people began to move away from the Church. Authors began to focus on the morals of the individual and on less lofty ideals than those of the Middle Ages. Shakespeare wrote one-hundred fifty-four sonnets during his lifetime. Within these sonnets he largely explored romantic love, not the love of God. In Sonnet 29 Shakespeare uses specific word choice and rhyme to show the reader that it is easy to be hopeful when life is going well, but love is always there, for rich and poor alike, even when religion fails.