Shakespeare's collection of sonnets is heralded as one of the greatest, most ambitious sonnet collections in English literature. Of these154 sonnets, the first 126 of them are addressed to a 'fair youth', a beatiful young man, with whom Shakespeare has developed an intimate friendship. The overarching theme of devotion in antimony to mortality denotes that “Sonnet 18” is predominantly a love poem. Accordingly the purpose of the poem seems initially to be to compare his beloved friend's handsomness with a common symbol of beauty, a fine summer's day. However, Shakespeare actually provides a pragmatic critique of the conventions of love poetry in his doing so. He not only exposes the flaws of the love poetry through the comparison but also suggests the merits of it in conveying the idea of his everlasting love, and the ability of verse to immortalise both love and beauty.
“Sonnet 18” is written in typical Shakespearan sonnet form, comprising of three distinguishable quatrains and a rhyming couplet. This style of poetry is very useful in creating an argument that flows coherently, as the quatrains seperate main ideas. Although the quatrains in “Sonnet 18”, are not physically split-up by open lines, they are clearly separated by the change in rhyme scheme. The poem deals with thematic ideas of the inability to capture beauty satisfactorily, the transience of beauty and the brevity of life (Mabillard para. 1) and, in contrast, the timelessness of poetry. In the first quatrain, Shakespeare immediately establishes the intentions of his poem. Superficially he wishes to celebrate the beauty of the 'fair youth'. However, through his question “Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?” he actually shows his hesitancy to use such a compar...
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...est of capturing the instantaneous beauty of his friend, which makes the initial shortcomings of this poem irrelevant. Shakspeare has attempted, executed and achieved all this in just fourteen neat lines, and the fact that people are still reading and analyising this poem today is testament to the success of his endeavour.
Works Cited
Shakespeare, W. “Sonnet 18”. Ed. Amanda Mabillard. Shakespeare Online. 12 November 2008. < http://www.shakespeare-online.com/sonnets/18detail.html >.
Shakespeare, W. “Sonnet 18”. Productions of Time. Comp. Department of English. Grahamstown: Rhodes University, 2012
Mabillard, Amanda. How to Analyze a “Shakespearean Sonnet”. Shakespeare Online. 20 November 2009. < http://www.shakespeare-online.com/sonnets/sonnetanalyze.html >.
Mukherjee, T. “Shakespeare's Sonnets: Time and Love” Studying English Literature. (2012): lines 12-15
"Poetry is the revelation of a feeling that the poet believes to be interior and personal [but] which the reader recognizes as his own." (Salvatore Quasimodo). There is something about the human spirit that causes us to rejoice in shared experience. We can connect on a deep level with our fellow man when we believe that somehow someone else understands us as they relate their own joys and hardships; and perhaps nowhere better is this relationship expressed than in that of the poet and his reader. For the current assignment I had the privilege (and challenge) of writing an imitation of William Shakespeare’s "Sonnet 87". This poem touched a place in my heart because I have actually given this sonnet to someone before as it then communicated my thoughts and feelings far better than I could. For this reason, Sonnet 87 was an easy choice for this project, although not quite so easy an undertaking as I endeavored to match Shakespeare’s structure and bring out his themes through similar word choice.
"Sonnet 116." The Norton Anthology of English Literature. 6th ed. Vol. 1. Eds. M. H. Abrams,
Canfield Reisman, Rosemary M. “Sonnet 43.” Masterplots II. Philip K. Jason. Vol. 7. Pasadena: Salem Press, 2002. 3526-3528. Print.
...ays him. He tricks himself into believing that he and his friend are such kindred spirits that they are truly one in mind, body and spirit, when in fact, they are not. The final line of the sonnet begins with an initial spondee, "Sweet flattery" (14) in which Shakespeare himself is admitting how sweet delusion really is, and ends in a terminal spondee, "me alone" (14) showing that the young man and Shakespeare were really never more than acquaintances that loved the same woman.] Through a figment of his imagination, he developed a mythical relationship with the young man when in fact, the only really loving relationship he had was with his own pretentious subconscious.
In “Sonnet,” Billy Collins satirizes the classical sonnet’s volume to illustrate love in only “.fourteen lines.” (1). Collins’s poem subsists as a “Sonnet,” though there exists many differences in it, countering the customarily conventional structure of a sonnet. Like Collins’s “Sonnet,” Shakespeare’s “Sonnet 130” also faces incongruities with the classic sonnet form as he satirizes the concept of ideal beauty that was largely a convention of writings and art during the Elizabethan era. Although these poems venture through different techniques to appear individually different from the classic sonnet, the theme of love makes the poems analogous.
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
Steele, Felicia Jean. "Shakespeare's SONNET 130." Explicator 62.3 (2004): 132-137. Academic Search Complete. Web. 22 Nov. 2013.
This Shakespearean sonnet consisting of 14 lines can be subdivided into 3 parts. In each part, the poet uses a different voice. He uses 1st person in the first part, 3rd person in the 2nd part and 2nd person in the last part. Each section of the poem has a different theme that contributes to the whole theme of the poem.
"Sonnet." Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, 6Th Edition (2013): 1. Literary Reference Center. Web. 3 Dec. 2013.
The love that a person has for someone is not the same for other people. They can look at their love through nature or just by their beauty. Shakespeare has the ability to explain his love for someone by using nature as a reference. Looking at two of Shakespeare’s sonnets 18 and 130 explore the differences and similarities between one another. In Sonnet 18 and 130, both show Shakespeare’s knowledge in developing his love and respect.
Therefore, because William Shakespeare’s “Sonnet 18” and Edmund Spenser’s “Sonnet 75” share the idea that love is sincere and eternal, they can be looked upon as similar in theme. However, although similar in theme, Shakespeare’s intent is portraying the true everlasting beauty of his love, which is already achieved, whereas Spenser concentrates more on trying to entice his desired love, remaining optimistic throughout the entire poem.
This sonnet is an anti-love poem that ironically shows how the fairness of a lady is contingent upon nature's blessings and her external manifestations. The Spenserian style brings unity to this sonnet, in that it's theme and rhyme is interwoven throughout, but the focus of her "fairness" is divided into an octave and a sestet. The first eight lines praise her physical features (hair, cheeks, smile), while the last six lines praise her internal features (words, spirit, heart). This sonnet intentionally hides the speaker's ridicule behind counterfeit love-language, using phrases like: "fair golden hairs" (line 1), and "rose in her red cheeks" (line 3), and "her eyes the fire of love does spark" (line 4). This traditional love language fills pages of literature and song, and has conventionally been used to praise the attributes of a lover; but this sonnet betrays such language by exhibiting a critique rather than commendation. This sonnet appears to praise the beauty of a lady but ironically ridicules her by declaring that her "fairness" is contingent upon nature, physical features, and displaying a gentle spirit, which hides her pride.
Biespiel,David. “Sonnet14.” Masterplots II. Philip K. Jason. Vol. 7. Pasadena: Salem Press, 2002. 3521-3522. Print.
The fourteen line sonnet is constructed by three quatrains and one couplet. With the organization of the poem, Shakespeare accomplishes to work out a different idea in each of the three quatrains as he writes the sonnet to lend itself naturally. Each of the quatrain contains a pair of images that create one universal idea in the quatrain. The poem is written in a iambic pentameter with a rhyme scheme of ABAB CDCD EFEF GG. Giving the poem a smooth rhyming transition from stanza to
Works Cited Shakespeare, William. The. The "Sonnet 18" The Longman Anthology of British Literature, compact edition. Ed. David Damrosch.