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Shakespeare sonnet analysis essay
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1. What are the effects of this poem’s structure? At first analysis of the rhyme scheme, many would describe the “Bright Star” as an English, Shakespearean sonnet. However, after a closer analysis reveals a structure of eight and then six lines rhymes interweaving, an octave preceding a sestet, it becomes evident that the poem conforms to the structure of an Italian sonnet. This merger of two sonnet types into one larger sonnet is deliberate. By harnessing the most powerful aspects of the Italian and English sonnets into a single sonnet, Keats is able to present structurally his ideas while also emphasizing the couplet. The Petrarchan sonnet lends a structured outline to the ideas displayed within the sonnet; the first eight lines share a common theme while the last six lines, although only a modification of the first idea presented, discuss an alternative theme. The reason Keats includes features from the English sonnet is to emphasize the couplet. The "mask" is the covering of snow on the ground. This snow has pleasing connotations, being "new" and "soft." All the moon can do is "gaze." 2. What are the effects of one or two of this poem’s rhymes? One of the most important rhymes in the poem “Bright Star” is “breath” with “death”. An analysis of this rhyme allows for further exploration into Keats’ reasons for incorporating the rhyme scheme of a Shakespearean sonnet. Keats’ approach draws the attention of the reader to the couplet to emphasize his desire to “live [for]ever” in eternity with his love. Although not a unique, this rhyme still successfully incorporates a tragic aspect of the poem and highlights the author’s deep desire to be immortal only if he is able to live in eternity with someone he loves. 3. What... ... middle of paper ... ..., race, or eros, or death, or class, or nature, or gender, or whatever? In Keats’ “Bright Star” and Robert Frost’s “Choose Something Like a Star”, both authors observe the North Star similarly. However, in each poem, the star comforts the author in a different way. While Keats is unsettled by the thought of the star spending eternity alone, he is comforted by the idea that the star spends eternity in one location. In “Choose Something Like a Star”, the star’s ability to help humanity comforts Frost. While the authors are comforted in only slightly different ways in the texts, the styles of the two poems differ significantly. In “Bright Star” Keats uses elevated diction and iambic pentameter to create an eloquent poem. While in “Choose Something Like a Star”, Frost uses colloquial diction, free verse, and a slight accusatory tone to create a less formal tone.
Keats "Bright Star" and Frost's "Choose Something Like a Star" although similar in their address to a star differ in form, tone and theme. The latter contains an illusion to the former that brings Keats' themes into the poem. In order to compare these poems it is necessary to look carefully at their themes and constructions. "Bright Star" is a sonnet in traditional iambic pentameter. Its tone is elegiac as it celebrates the woman's beauty and his love for her in his plea for steadfastness. The poem opens with an apostrophe to the star which calls our attention to his plea. The verbs "would" and "were" indicate his wish to be like the star whom he addresses as "thou." The star is "hung" in the night, a pleasant image, and he uses a simile to compare it with Eremite, a hermit, who presumably sat apart from the world watching. The eyelids of this star (the star is given anthropomorphic qualities) are eternally apart -- always watching, "patiently" and "sleeplessly." Keats then enumerates what this star watches. It watches water -- which is also steadfast as indicated by the comparison "priest-like." The waters that surround the land Keats says are performing ablutions or cleansings and blessings on the land. The star also gazes upon the snow. He uses the metaphor of snow as a "mask" (more personification) as it hides the mountains and moors. The "m" alliteration emphasizes the falling of the snow. The repetition of "of" underlines the parallel structure and idea of the two scenes the star regards. The rhythm of this 2nd quatrain is slow and peaceful like the scene. Then Keats puts a "No -- " w...
Keats’ poetry explores many issues and themes, accompanied by language and technique that clearly demonstrates the romantic era. His poems ‘Ode to a Nightingale’ and ‘Bright Star’ examine themes such as mortality and idealism of love. Mortality were common themes that were presented in these poems as Keats’ has used his imagination in order to touch each of the five senses. He also explores the idea that the nightingale’s song allows Keats to travel in a world of beauty. Keats draws from mythology and christianity to further develop these ideas. Keats’ wrote ‘Ode To A Nightingale’ as an immortal bird’s song that enabled him to escape reality and live only to admire the beauty of nature around him. ‘Bright Star’ also discusses the immortal as Keats shows a sense of yearning to be like a star in it’s steadfast abilities. The visual representation reveal these ideas as each image reflects Keats’ obsession with nature and how through this mindset he was able
The imposition of the British aggressor is even made apparent through the structure of the work, the two sonnet form stanzas not only highlight the inadequacy of the loveless union, but with their Shakespearean rhyme scheme also imply the cultural dominance of English tradition. The use of half rhymes, such as ‘pulse’ and ‘burst’ or ‘pain’ and ‘within’ leaves the stanzas feel...
John Keats’s illness caused him to write about his unfulfillment as a writer. In an analysis of Keats’s works, Cody Brotter states that Keats’s poems are “conscious of itself as the poem[s] of a poet.” The poems are written in the context of Keats tragically short and painful life. In his ...
Within this poem, Keats explores the idea that beauty within life is temporary. Life will eventually go on and may end in disaster while art can capture a beautiful moment forever. When evaluating those ideas within the work, it is important to know about Keat’s background and understand that he was slowly dying and soon he would not be on earth. This idea is expressed in the lines “Your leaves, nor ever bid the Spring adieu; / And, happy melodist, unwearied”(22-23) where he expresses how beauty is important because it will remain long after he dies from his illness.
For the reader to grasp the concept that this sonnet is about writer’s block Sidney has to cement the idea that Astrophil is a writer. In this duality, being both the star lover and writer, we begin to see Stella as a metaphor for a writer’s work and audience. Opening the sonnet with a profession of love for Stella, the object of Astrophil’s affection, he is hurt that he does not have her love. In the view of a passionate writer it is as if some critic has said that you are or your work is inadequate and without their approval. In order to gain the critics or Stella’s love he w...
The structure of Bright Star is unique in that it breaks free of the limitations of the sonnet form, a form that is notorious for its strict and constrained nature. The rhyme scheme falls very close to the Shakespearean rhyme scheme of ABABCDCDEFEFGG, in which the last two lines represent the final heroic couplet. However, the rhyme of the ninth nine (‘unchangeable’) is never continued, as the eleventh line (‘swell’), which the Shakespearean form dictates should rhyme with the ninth line, doesn’t rhyme fully. These create a sort of volta effect, emphasized by the strong determined word ‘No’, and followed by a caesura to create a pause, emphasizing the new change. This creates a lean towards the Petrarchan sonnet form, in which the volta lies at the beginning of the sestet, rather at the heroic couplet of the Shakespearean sonnet. This is made clearer as the first two quatrains deal with the subject of immortality by examining the star and how it watches down on Earth, while the final quatrain and couplet, or the sestet, which now has the rhyme scheme of EFGFHH, deal with how Keats instead wishes to be with his lover instead. The effect of the merged sonnet forms creates a free and lively mood which feels unconstrained and more natural. It also makes the sestet livelier, not only due to extra rhyme whic...
(9-10), sets the depressing mood of the poem. Also the personification of the word joy, describing it as slain. Starting from the (ninth line) there is a volta, a shift in the tone of the poem. Traditionally in a sonnet the volta is where there is a resolution of some sort. However, in the case of this poem the shift discards any hope that the speaker
In Keats “Ode to a Nightingale” we see the sense embodied through a variety of different literary techniques and in particular his use of synaesthesia imagery. The dejected downhearted nature of the poem promotes emotion in the reader even before noting poetic devices at work. The structure of the meter is regular and adds to the depth of this poe...
Arguably one of John Keats’ most famous poems, “Ode to a nightingale” in and of itself is an allegory on the frail, conflicting aspects of life while also standing as a commentary on the want to escape life’s problems and the unavoidability of death. Keats’ poem utilizes a heavy amount of symbolism, simile and allusion to idealize nature as a perfect, almost mystical, world that holds no problems while using imagery taken from nature, combined with alliteration and assonance, to idealize the dream of escape from the problems life often presents; more specifically, aging and our inevitable deaths by allowing the reader to feel as if they are experiencing the speaker’s experience listening to the nightingale.
An “Ode on a Grecian Urn” by John Keats is one of five great odes, characterized by great technical difficulty. The speaker, presumably Keats, addresses an “unravish’d bride,” which is the first of many figurative language techniques used in the ode, in five stanzas, each stanza complete with a separate subject. It is assumed that Keats was diagnosed with tuberculosis as he was composing this poem, which can explain the interest with immortality throughout the narrative. The structure Keats crafts along with his usage of figurative language allows for the overall theme of the poem to be presented; however, Keats usage of paradoxes implies a dual theme with several lines of his ode, which is the reason as to why there are several interpretations of an “Ode on a Grecian Urn.” The structure of the ode seems simple enough- five stanzas, ten lines each, and a precise iambic pentameter.
In order to experience true sorrow one must feel true joy to see the beauty of melancholy. However, Keats’s poem is not all dark imagery, for interwoven into this poem is an emerging possibility of resurrection and the chance at a new life. The speaker in this poem starts by strongly advising against the actions and as the poem continues urges a person to take different actions. In this poem, the speaker tells of how to embrace life by needing the experience of melancholy to appreciate the true joy and beauty of
Though ballads and Sonnets are poems that can depict a picture of someone’s beloved, they can have many differences. For instance, a Ballad is a story in short stanzas such as a song would have, where as a sonnet typical, has a traditional structure of 14 lines employing several rhyme schemes and adheres to a tight thematic organization. Both Robert Burn’s ballad “The Red, Red, Rose, and William Shakespeare’s “of the Sonnet 130 “they express their significant other differently. However, “The Red, Red, Rose depicts the Falling in new love through that of a young man’s eyes, and Shakespeare’s sonnet 130 depicts a more realistic picture of the mistress he writes about; which leaves the reader to wonder if beauty is really in the eyes of the beholder.
Although the two sonnets differ in their general structure, the formal elements making up that structure are just as crucial for both of them to organize and contrast the themes and ideas present throughout the
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