Shakespeare Response Analysis

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Sarah Casey Professor Alex Quinlan LIT2000 4 September 2015 A Response to Shakespeare’s Sonnets William Shakespeare is a one of the most famous writers in history. Everyone with a high school education has probably read a Shakespearean play. This was where I first exposed to work by Shakespeare. I will be discussing ten of Shakespeare’s Sonnets, which explore his feelings for an unidentified addressee. When reading a poem about love written by a man, typically you’d think that it was written about a woman. When reading Sonnet I, I made the assumption that the subject was a woman he wanted to have children with. Shakespeare writes in the second to last line of Sonnet I “pity the world.” I interpreted that as the person should reproduce for …show more content…

This reminds me of the Lana Del Rey song “Young and Beautiful.” The first part of the chorus of this song is “Will you still love me when I’m no longer young and beautiful? Will you still love me when I got nothing but my aching soul?” That song made me think about how the addressee feels about Shakespeare. Does the addressee like the attention from Shakespeare? Shakespeare describes the subject as lovelier than a summer’s day in Sonnet XVIII. Would Shakespeare still have appreciated the addressee and written about him if he were not beautiful? This makes me wonder what the age difference is between Shakespeare and the man. How young was the man when Shakespeare first met …show more content…

Shakespeare asserts “From fairest creatures we desire increase, that thereby beauty’s rose might never die, . . his tender heir might bear his memory.” Shakespeare is trying to convince the addressee to have children so that his beauty will live on. Sonnet XVIII ends with Shakespeare writing that “So long as men can breathe or eyes can see, so long lives this, and gives life to thee.” The last couplet of Sonnet XVII says, “But were some child of your alive that time, you should live twice, in it, and in my rhyme.” The subject’s beauty and memory will continue to exist in the world through Shakespeare’s writing and if he has

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