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Sonnet 29 poem analysis
Sonnet 29 critical analysis
Analysis of William Shakespeare
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Sonnet #29
Despite popular belief, William Shakespeare was considered a great poet before a great playwright. He accomplished writing at least 154 sonnets and other poems of love. In this paper, I will analyze one of his greatest sonnets.
One of the most famous of his sonnets is number XXIX. This sonnet is one long sentence, but it still follows the usual Shakespearean pattern of three quatrains (four line sections) and a couplet. It also follows the traditional rhyme scheme for Shakespearian sonnets: ababcdcdefefgg.
The first quatrain tells how the narrator is feeling. From reading these four lines, you sense his loneliness and sense of abandonment by fate, G-d, love, and other men. I believe the key line in this quatrain is line 3 (When, in disgrace with fortune and men's eyes,). Here I feel Shakespeare is saying that this person who is very depressed, is crying out for help to others, but he is such an outcast that not even "deaf heaven," meaning God and the angels of heaven or listening to his cries.
The second quatrain starts off with a line that shows the narrator wishes to be more optimistic. He realizes that in order to achieve his goals, he must believe in himself first and stop being so depressed. The second half of the quatrain shows he is envious of other men’s possessions and riches when he says, “Desiring this man's art and that man's scope, With what I most enjoy contented least.”
Moving into the third quatrain, you see that the speaker begins to reflect on himself and starts to compare himself with his friends. You know this when “Haply I think on thee, and then my state,” is said. Just as you start to think the speaker is going back into a state of self-pity, you realize the speaker’s inspired sprits are rising like “the lark at break of day”.
...he imagery of the more intensely-felt passages in the middle of the poem. Perhaps the poet is like someone at their journey's end, `all passion spent', recollecting in tranquillity some intimations of mortality?
To achieve this overall sense of regret he once again utilizes the poetic device of apostrophe. He addresses desire and personifies it as a devil figure whom he struck a deal with and ultimately paid the “price of [a] mangled mind.” This not only ties into the vilification present in the first quatrain, but it also creates the atmosphere of guilt and regret. He feels guilty for falling victim to desire and regrets it because the price was too high. Sir Sidney also employs a metaphor, which ties into the apostrophe used in this stanza, once more. He compares he mental pain and anguish he feels for his actions to the purchase of something that was not worth it at the cost of something valuable to him, in this case
The first quatrain In this sonnet the speaker starts to reveal more about the relationship between him and the Dark Lady, and also his fear of growing old. He starts the sonnet by saying “When my love swears she is made of truth/ I do believe her, though I know she lies” (1-2). In these first two lines the speaker contradicts himself right away by saying that he believes her, but knows she is not telling the truth. He is very aware of the delusion he is in, but he is willing to let it pass. He is willing to let it pass because of the mutual dishonesty that exists in the relationship. In the next two lines, he talks about youth, and age. He is talking about the Dark Lady considering him a younger ma...
In the end of the narrator’s consciousness, the tone of the poem shifted from a hopeless bleak
To understand these two sonnets completely, one must first have a little background information concerning the sequence of the Sonnets and William Shakespeare's life. Shakespeare's series of Sonnets can be divided, "into two sections, the first (numbers 1-126) being written to or about a young man, and most of those in the second (numbers 127-154) being written to or about a dark woman" (Wilson 17-8). Because of the autobiographical nature of Shakespeare's Sonnets, these two characters are people from Shakespeare's actual life. The young man is Shakespeare's patron and Shakespeare has a "humble and selfless adoration [that] he feels for his young friend" (Wilson 32). The dark woman is Shakespeare's lover, a woman that infatuates him. These two people provide an emotional contrast for each other and Shakespeare's views on love. When these two meet, they have an affair, "behavior that, as the Poet [Shakespeare] is really deeply in love with the woman, causes him such distress, at times agony, as to introduce a note of tragedy into the series [of sonnets], . . ." (Wilson 33). The affair between the young man and the dark woman is the catalyst for Shakespeare's au...
Sonnets are rhymed poems consisting of fourteen lines, the first eight making up the octet and the last six lines being the sestet. The basic structure of the sonnet arose in medieval Italy, its most prominent exponent being the Early Renaissance poet, Petrarch. The appearance of the English Sonnet, however, occurred when Shakespeare was an adolescent, around 1580 (Moore and Charmaine 1). Although it is named after him, Shakespeare did not originate the English sonnet form. The English sonnet differs slightly from the Italian, or Petrarchian, Sonnet and the Spenserian Sonnet in that it ends with a rhymed couplet and follows the rhyme scheme (abab cdcd efef gg). Thus, the octet/sestet structure can be alternatively divided into three quatrains with alternating rhymes and ending in a rhymed couplet. William Shakespeare’s Sonnet 65 is part of a sequence of one hundred and fifty-four sonnets allegedly written sometime between 1592 and May of 1609 (Duncan 13; Moore and Charmine 1). In sonnets 1 through 126, the speaker addresses a young man often referred to as the Youth, and in sonnets 127 through 154, a woman, or Dark Lady, is addressed
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
In the first line a question is asked: "I have to say poetry and is that nothing and am I saying it?" The second line is simply a paraphrase of the first question. The poet wants to know if writing poetry is worth anything, or if it is "nothing." The poem explores and wanders while developing the entire theme until the opening question is answered by the final couplet. The first two lines are followed by two more corresponding lines. Lines 3-4 state that the author has nothing, but that he has poetry to say and he must say it. To summarize the first quatrain, the author asks what the meaning of poetry is, but before he has answered his initial question, he continues by explaining that, regardless of his condition, or the meaning of poetry, he has something he must say through poetry.
Finding these sonnets in numerous other languages and all around the world shows how cultures could be spread and was influenced on others. This is interesting to know that no matter the cultural differences the poets and artist were still able to share what they knew and loved. To learn that these sonnets have turned into what we now use as the modern sonnet is unbelievable.Our modern sonnets can be taken in any direction. Sometimes the original rhyme scheme is used and we use the fourteen lines and the regular meter. But other times we just put one word in each line or we use free verse and do not stick with a rhyme scheme at all.
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.
The first quatrain of the sonnet introduces the mistress' eyes "which are nothing like the sun" (line 1). It is very straightforward and may be viewed as harsh, but one can feel an initial powerful energy supported by the rest of the lines of the quatrain. The readers will see that the contrast of the beautiful images in nature is readily established in the first quatrain. The line "If snow be white, why then her breast are dun" (line 3) signifies that her mistress' breast are not as white as that of a snow. On the same note, the speaker contrasts the redness of her lips as nothing as that of a coral (line 2) and that his mistress has "wires" for hair - all of these may be viewed as a form of a mockery.
Of the many Shakespearean sonnets few of them incorporate five of the same similarities. With these, time stealing beauty, whether true or clichéd; a person defeating death by procreating; bring self absorbent; the importance of beauty; and an aspect of nature representing a time in some one’s life, Shakespeare shows all the aspects of being human.
Overall the images representing the speakers past give the idea that its not easy for the speaker to face his destiny alone. The fourteen line sonnet is constructed of three quatrains and one couplet. With the organization of the poem, Shakespeare works 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 first line is “When, in disgrace with Fortune and men’s eyes.” The very first word shows that the condition which will be explored in the sonnet is a temporary thing. It comes and goes like a beggar or like an outcast. Shakespeare used the word “when” to put the reader into the time that will be referred to. It automatically calls to mind an occurrence, and it makes the reader continue into the piece, trying to find out what Shakespeare will make occur. The next words are “in disgrace with Fortune and men’s eyes.” It seems that Shakespeare’s persona is down on his luck. Fortune, noticeably, is capitalized. This makes it a proper noun, a name perhaps. Shakespeare, on the other hand, could be trying to show the reader that fortune is something important, something that has power and meaning. Continuing into the line, “men’s eyes” appears. Notice that it is men’s eyes, not women’s eyes or man’s eyes. The latter, man’s eyes, would make it seem as if the persona was in disgrace with all of mankind, yet Shakespeare specifically chose to have disgrace in “men’s eyes.” This sh...
William Shakespeare's "Sonnet 18" has been a remarkably famous love poem from the time it was written. This sonnet is pure exaggeration of Shakespeare's feelings towards his beloved and his beauty and is expressed through various language techniques and strong language. It has a powerful theme of love and immortalization of the subject in this sonnet. The sonnet begins with rhetorical question where the poet uses a metaphor to ask "shall I compare thee to a summers day?" the rhetorical question directs the attention of the reader. The effect of the metaphor, shows how the poet thought of comparing the subject to a summers day, but then rejects the comparison because the poet feels much strongly about the beloved to compare him to something with as flawed as summer. The readers can interpret through the language and form that the poet is obviously in love with the subject as he continuously deteriorates summer to prove the perfectness of his beloved.