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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.
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 ...
Robert Frost's "Take Something Like a Star" and Richard Wilbur's "Love Calls Us to the Things of This World" are two poems which both invoke the audience to become involved in life while taking inspiration and guidance from spiritual forces manifested in the visible world. Frost's poem uses Keat's "Bright Star" as a launching point for discussion while Wilbur recalls in his title a phrase from St. Augistine's Commentary on the Psalms; yet both authors present complete discussions without requiring from the reader a foreknowledge of the earlier works. For Frost the central image is a star, any star, whose illumination can invoke man to lift his thoughts from the commonplace and mundane; and for Wilbur the central image is a simple clothesline hung with laundry, an image which invokes visions of the spiritual soul floating in the breeze yet at the same time connected to the common world of laborers, thieves, and lovers. Both poems, therefore, see the need for man to be aware of both his earthly and spiritual worlds and to achieve a balance between the two that elevates and defines him as a creature of God. Robert Frost and Wilbur Richard rely on good word choice to exemplify their common theme. Frost's "Take Something Like a Star" sticks with the word star to represent God. All of the adjectives that Frost uses to describe the star also go hand in hand with God. In the Poem "Love Calls Us to the Things of This World", Wilbur uses laundry on a clothesline to characterize the human spirit. Wilbur uses more nouns to describe the spiritual soul than Frost's usage of adjectives. Both Frost and Wilbur stress, however,...
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...
... bruised by the poor reception of his poetry. The realizations that we all "must die", and that attempts to attain immortality through art are in vain, leave this sonnet with a lasting and overriding sense of despair.
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...
The form of a poem can be understood simply as the physical structure. However, there are various aspects that make it up that contribute towards the goals of the poet. I find that the sonnets “When I Have Fears that I May Cease to Be”, by John Keats, and “Anthem for Doomed Youth”, by Wilfred Owen, make efficient use of their formal elements to display the depth of the situation of their poems. Keats uses a Shakespearean sonnet structure to organize his thoughts being displayed throughout the poem and to construct them around the speaker’s fear that is the central focus of the sonnet. Owen’s sonnet is a Petrarchan sonnet, although it has a rhyme scheme similar to a Shakespearean, which allows him to display a contrast between the images the
The poet John Keats, who writes “Bright Star” and the poet Robert Frost, who wrote “Choose Something Like a Star” both share a common writing style which is shown through the similarity in the theme, structure and other poetic devices in their poems.
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...
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...
John Keats’s poem, “To Autumn” is an ode poem, exemplifying his feelings, experiences and thoughts towards the season of autumn. When a reader first reads the poem, it is clear to them that the speaker is somewhere midday admiring a beautiful fall day. It is not until analyzing the poem, does the reader understand the depth the speaker has gone to describe the day he is experiencing. However, beneath simple ideas the speaker presents, lays a complex structure that is uneasy to unpack but has a timeless component from the 1800’s. Many poems from the 1800’s like Keats use strict stanza structure, rhyme scheme and rhythm. But by using sense imagery Keats displays the quiet daily observations and appreciation of a fall day without disturbing the structure. In this particular poem lies an ability to suggest, explore and develop an abundance of themes without unsettling its calm description of autumn. Keats creates an overwhelming awareness of the discontentment autumn has become accustomed to.
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.
There is no life without death, and no death without life. Life and death mutually define each other and without one, the other would have no meaning. Keats was an English poet very concerned with death and human mortality. His poems usually deal with his struggle to accept his own mortality and his attempt to flee from reality into a world of immortality. This poem, “To Autumn”, which Keats wrote after observing an autumn evening, is seemingly simplistic and purely descriptive. However, underneath the surface, Keats has finally begun to accept the difficult truth that death is inevitable. Through the poem “To Autumn”, Keats urges humankind to accept death as a natural part of human life and to recognize the beauty in death.
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
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
In “Ode to A Nightingale,” a prominent significance to Keats is his idea of the conflicted interplay in human life of living and death, mortal and immortal, and feeling versus the lack of feeling or inability to feel. “The ideal condition towards which Keats always strives because it is his ideal, is one in which mortal and immortal,…beauty and truth are one” (Wasserman). The narrator plunges into a dreamlike state when hearing a nightingale sing. As the nightingale sings, he shares its elation and feels the conflicting response of agony when he comes down from his dreamlike ecstasy and realizes that unlike the nightingale in his imagination, “Thou was not born for death, immortal Bird,” his life is finite (61). “Where palsy shakes a few, sad last gray hairs, where youth grows pale, and spectre-thin, and dies” (25-26).