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Critical analysis of the poem sonnet by William Shakespeare
Shakespearean sonnet critical analysis
Critical analysis of sonnet 65
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Here's Shakespeare's sonnet no. 65. I'm going to (a) space it out and (b) add in a running commentary that might be helpful to suggest the kinds of reactions one might have in reading it. Let me know if this helps.
Since brass, nor stone, nor earth, nor boundless sea
"nor"="and not". A list . . . a slowly paced list. Of what sorts of things? what scope? what do they have in common?. . . Sentence is just beginning . . .
But sad mortality o'er-sways their power,
Ah . . . none of them last. And yet they sure seem strong and long-lasting. Is it true what he says? And anyway, so what? why mention this? Sentence not yet reached its main clause . . .
How with this rage shall beauty hold a plea,
Aha: here's the point: the sad pathetic vulnerability of "beauty". Very general though. Does he mean any particular beauty? "Hold a plea" is nice: a sort of legal image, no?
Whose action is no stronger than a flower?
Beauty doesn't have much going for it to oppose time. "Action" seems to continue the legal metaphor. The image gets more particular--"a flower"--though it's still relatively general. We're most conscious of the tone of the lamenting speaker, less so of any particular things he's naming. . . Poor pathetic beauty . . . Sentence has ended.
Oh, how shall summer's honey breath hold out
Against the wreckful siege of battering days,
Fresh start: new sentence. Saying it again, more intensely. It's getting better, more specific. Lovely fresh sensuous appeal in "honey breath". Summer is a sweet-smelling person, a beloved presumably (you'd hardly enjoy smelling the sweet breath of anyone else). Its breath can hardly "hold out": wonder what that means? Last long enough? A singer sustaining a long note or phrase needs breath that will "hold out." And to "hold out against a siege" means to withstand a siege: so now the summer has turned into a besieged fortress or city. And the besieging enemy is using battering rams, and trying to wreck everything. Imagery: note that we're not totally visualizing summer as a person; it's a delicate suggestion that glides into the next image, that of the besieged town. And we don't visualize summer as a town, either. In fact "visualize" is too crude a term for what imagery this subtle does.
According to en.wikipedia.org and historyplace.cpm, Hitlers rise to power began in Germany when he joined the Nazi party in September, 1919. Deep anger about the first world war and the treaty of Versalies created an underlying bitterness in the German people which Hitlers viciousness and expansionism appealed, so the perty gave him support. He was imprisioned after the 1923 unich Bear hall putsch. The Bear hall putsch resulted in the deaths of four officers. He was sentenced to five years, during that time he wrote Mein Kampf. He was named chancellor on January 30, 1933 by president Paul Van Hidenburg. His rise to power could have ended if the Enabling Act of 1933 was not adopted. The Enabling Act of 1933 meant that Hitler could enact laws and endemocract in Germany. The Nazi party used force to scare the German Governmant into voting for the act. The day the voting for the Nazi troopers gathered outside the opera house, chanting,"Full power or else." under Hitlers rule, Germany was transformed into a racist totlaitarian state which controlled nearly all aspects for everyones life.
story points out that beauty has its cost as well, the power of being beautiful holds a great
Hitler served as a German soldier in World War I. His commander made him an education officer, in order to immunize his charges against pacifist and democratic ideas. In September 1919 he joined the nationalist German Workers’ party, and in April 1920 he went to work full time for the party. The party was now renamed the National Socialist German Workers’ (Nazi) party. In 1921 he was elected party chairman with dictatorial powers. In November 1923, a time of economic and political chaos, he led an uprising (Putsch) in Munich against the postwar Weimar Republic, proclaiming himself chancellor of a new authoritarian regime but he failed. Hitler was sentenced to five years’ imprisonment but only served eight months. During those eight months in prison he wrote his autobiography Mein Kampf(My Struggle). When the Great Depression struck in 1929, promising a strong Germany, jobs, and national glory, he attracted millions of voters. Hitler came to absolute power in 1933.
Adolf Hitler was a tyrant leader in Germany. He was the head of the Nazi party and his aggressive foreign policy is considered to be a large factor attributing to World War II. The great depression in Germany created opportunity for Hitler. Germany was suffering and the people were willing to entertain any different options to make life better (Wikipedia ). Hitler was appointed Chancellor of Germany, giving him power over the legislative and executive branches of the government. This power was the beginning of his empire. The other existing parties at the time were intimidated and disbanded giving Hitler the power he was craving (Wikipedia ).
“There are various orders of beauty, causing men to make fools of themselves in various styles,” George Eliot. Beauty has caused men to move mountain, and jump through countless hoops. It is a quality that is subjective and affects the beholder differently. In Poe’s Ligea and Hawthorne’s The Birthmark, Ligea, Rowena, and Georgina all had different orders of beauty that similarly affects how their husbands saw them. In these two pieces of literature there was an exaltation of beauty as an abstraction that hid the depth of the women and led to deceit and the sense of superiority in their husbands.
In the beginning of the story, her father loses her in card game. Even after losing his only daughter in a card game, her father seems more upset at the thought of losing his riches. Then, when Beauty goes to stay with the Tiger, the first, and only, thing he asks for is to see her naked. At this point Beauty has decided to not be a victim and states “For now my own skin was my sole capital in the world and today I 'd make my first investment.” With this in mind she gives Tiger a counteroffer for her virginity, but not her looks or vulnerability. After the Tiger refuses her offer, Beauty goes to her room and discovers a wind up doll that looks exactly like her, and she muses that they both mean the same to the men of the world. Then, because Beauty would not bare herself to the Tiger, the Tiger bares himself to Beauty. Beauty ends up showing herself to the Tiger once she realizes that they both have the same meaning to men, and that she should just give in. That she should stop fighting and just accept the non-human self that the men see her as
What is beauty? People have always attempted to find, create, and pursue it. A quick checkout at the grocery store will reveal a plethora of magazines devoted purely to what they call beauty and the proper pursuit of it. Most have an idea of what they might personally define as beauty, but not as a general, sweeping definition. That which one might label ugly another might call absolutely stunning. Some find beauty in cats, others in dogs, just as some favor early morning mountain ranges over a sun setting over the plains. “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder” is the favorite adage quoted by many to explain for this discrepancy, but what does that quickly-spat out phrase even mean? In reality, while the adage is partially true, beauty is not relative or subject to our human whim - it is an ideal created and truly attained only by God, which as His children we are to reflect in love.
He describes beauty as delicate and rare, unable to be established. He focuses on the lightheartedness of young girls, how they are caught up in beauty, and he warns them to be conscientious of the fact that their beauty will fade and that they cannot put all their hope on their beauty. At the same time, he encourages them to "practice" their beauty until it is gone, and he promises to celebrate that beauty as best he can, with all its value and frailty.
beauty will last for eternity. Yet to reach a point to appreciate the beauty we must strip away the
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:
There are many misconceptions about beauty and its importance, in todays society. In a time when physical beauty can be of utter importance, we seem to be at a loss of it. What is beauty and where can it be found? Can we see it in the air we breathe, the brilliant oceans, in the striking sunsets, or even in one another? With the weight of beauty in today's society, the common use of expressions used to describe life's brilliance is expected. The many expressions used to discuss beauty such as "beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder" and "beauty runs only skin deep" all stimulate different opinions and create controversy, but the most notorious of all, being that "beauty doesn't last forever." Sheri S. Tepper's Beauty reinstates the many questions regarding beauty and it's value, regardless of the time in which it is present. As time goes on, all that is beautiful and magical in the world will eventually become extinct. In her web review of the novel, Amanda Holland-Minkley, a professor at Cornell University, argues that the guiding theme throughout the novel is "the presence of magic and beauty in the world, and the risk we run of allowing them to disappear." As Beauty lives through the 20th century, her new experiences cause her to view life from a different perspective. Her once peaceful and simple life in the 14th century at Westfaire was now changed into a life where famine, drugs, violence, disease, overpopulation, and pain were all too common. In this world, beauty and magic are non-existent, so much so that the standards of beauty have minimized to almost nothing. Beauty says, "The worst part of living here is that nothing is beautiful. Magic doesn't work" (101). The time in which Beauty is living through is completely voi...
...e ability to achieve anything in life. Hopefully, readers would learn from this novel that beauty is not the most important aspect in life. Society today emphasizes the beauty of one's outer facade. The external appearance of a person is the first thing that is noticed. People should look for a person's inner beauty and love the person for the beauty inside. Beauty, a powerful aspect of life, can draw attention but at the same time it can hide things that one does not want disclosed. Beauty can be used in a variety of ways to affect one's status in culture, politics, and society. Beauty most certainly should not be used to excuse punishment for bad deeds. Beauty is associated with goodness, but that it is not always the case. This story describes how the external attractiveness of a person can influence people's behavior and can corrupt their inner beauty.
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.
Steele, Felicia Jean. "Shakespeare's SONNET 130." Explicator 62.3 (2004): 132-137. Academic Search Complete. Web. 22 Nov. 2013.
In Shakespeare’s sonnet 130, the speaker ponders the beauty, or the lack thereof, of his lover. Throughout the sonnet, the speaker presents his lover as an unattractive mistress with displeasing features, but in fact, the speaker is ridiculing, through the use of vivid imagery, the conventions of love poems and the way woman are portrayed through the use of false comparisons. In the end, the speaker argues that his mistress may not be perfect, but in his eyes, her beauty is equal to any woman who is abundantly admired and put through the untrue comparison.