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Elizabethan era influence on shakespeare
Elizabethan era influence on shakespeare
Shakespearean sonnets differences and similarities between 2,5 answers
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In this compare and contrast essay I will compare four poems in detail and mention two in the passing to find similarities and differences. The poems and sonnets I have chosen to compare are ‘Porphyria’s Lover’ and ‘My Last Duchess’ by Robert Browning and Sonnet 18 and Sonnet 130 by William Shakespeare The two Robert Browning poems, ‘Porphyria’s Lover’ and ‘My Last Duchess’ were written in the infamous Victorian Era whereas the two Shakespearean Sonnets were written in the Elizabethan Era. The styles of the poems differ in accordance to the difference of the time in which they were written. Pre-Romantic Era poems moved away from the idealistic concept of love towards a more realistic consideration of it, taking into account the social crisis of the time. 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 ... ... middle of paper ... ... were structured very similarly, with both poems having three quatrains and a couplet at the end. However, only one sonnet has a volta; “Shall I Compare Thee.’ The volta in this sonnet is triggered by the word ‘but,’ where it shifts away from the inadequate descriptions of his lover, and turns to the beloved. This may be saying that the beloved will always stay beautiful and young, but only in the sonnet itself, not in reality, but her existence will be recorded into the pages of the sonnet, and as long as people can read, she will be remembered. In conclusion, due to the difference of the age when the sonnets were written and when the Browning poems were written, subject matter greatly differs in style and muse, but still manages to relate through each other through the common thematic element of love, and the use of Iambic Pentameter and Iambic Tetrameter.