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Poets have long ostensibly described virtuous love while shielding their more base desires with idyllic lyrics through blazon poetry. Sonnet 12 from Astrophil and Stella is one such poem by Sidney, as it seemingly depicts a pure admiration from afar, when in reality it reflects a more base conquest. This turns the poem into a dissection of physical attraction, making the subject not Stella, but the narrators own lust. The poem begins as though praising Cupid, when, in reality, Cupid stands in for the attraction the narrator feels for Stella. “Cupid, because thou shin’st in Stella’s eyes” (1) sets up the poem’s theme of complimenting Stella’s features, following the tradition of blazon poetry, complimenting her individual parts rather than seeing her as a whole.
But, because it is the narrator providing this opinion and not Stella, it could be that the narrator is including this because he knows what he feels is wrong, and in the fantasy concocted through his writing he wishes to absolve himself of any wrong-doing. By having Stella say these things in the poem he is making it seem as though she is absolving him. The narrator even beautifies her voice as “her clear voice lifts thy fame to the skies” (8). The narrator has now connected Stella to Cupid in both body and voice, sexualizing every part of her. And yet, he still realizes that Stella is something that he cannot own, saying “thou contest Stella as thing” as though relinquishing any hold he might have had on her, realizing it was nothing compared with Cupid, who has the ability to “got up a breach by fighting well, / Cry, ‘Victory, this fair day all is ours!’” (10-11). So while Cupid is able to conquer her body, there remains a part of her unconquered, and previously unmentioned in the poem: her
The Sonnet by Edna St. Vincent Millay, “Love is Not All” demonstrates an unpleasant feeling about the knowledge of love with the impression to consider love as an unimportant element that does not worth dying for; the poem is a personal message addressing the intensity, importance, and transitory nature of love. The poet’s impression reflects her general point of view about love as portrays in the title “Love is Not All.” However, the unfolding part of the poem reveals the sarcastic truth that love is important.
In poetry, we can vent our frustration and interpretations of the world around us on paper. Poets make their points using metaphors or little stories to bring them out. When reading poetry, I always put myself in the shoes of the first or third person to better understand what is trying to be put across in the words of the sonnets. Most poems can mean anything to anybody. There are many cases in which you see people finding beauty in things they don't even understand, such as an Italian Opera or Ancient Hieroglyphics painted on a pyramid wall. Poetry can be silly, cheesy, boring or down right appealing and consuming to the readers eyes.
Despite the beauty described in the first few stanzas of the poem, it was the feeling of doubt and pondering that approached at the end of the poem that truly was the most thought provoking. Instead of just writing of beauty, Poets must realize that they may be leading people to false ideals, and in doing so that they may actually be causing individuals to believe in something that is nothing more than a dream. This realization makes the image of the questioning poet by far the most important in the piece.
In fact, the contrasting strategies of Sonnet 29 and extreme claims made in Sonnet 116 combine in a intellectual manner throughout Sonnet 130. The speaker of this sonnet incorporates numerous ironic contrasts with his love’s beauty and a few unattainable measures (SHAKESPEARE’S SONNETS). Unlike in previous sonnet the author does not directly state the true beauty of his love, however he expresses what she is
Love is something that no one can understand completely, but there is one thing that can be universally accepted: love creates a lot of feelings. Some are painful and mysterious, but some are loving and warm. The poems, "Sonnet 18," and "I Am Offering this Poem," demonstrates how the speakers similarly present their love through imagery, symbolism, and tone to show how they truly love their loved ones. Those feelings are so common these two poems are just some of the infinite amoount of poems that express these similar feeling of love: warmth, addiction, and affection. Love comes in many different ways, but the feelings are relatively similar.
Bailey Sieler English 402 Rita Hausmann 10/23/17 Love, it’s all around us. Everywhere we go, it seems like we can never escape it. It’s even in the literature we read, like Shakespeare and his poetry. Many of Shakespeare’s sonnets, like “Sonnet 30,” “Sonnet 55,” and “Sonnet 116,” present the ideas of love, friendship, and marriage. Over the course of Shakespeare’s life, he wrote 154 sonnets.
The speaker begins the poem an ethereal tone masking the violent nature of her subject matter. The poem is set in the Elysian Fields, a paradise where the souls of the heroic and virtuous were sent (cite). Through her use of the words “dreamed”, “sweet women”, “blossoms” and
...a definite and recognizable pattern. This poem is certainly not a sonnet, either in subject matter, meaning, or format. The rhyme scheme for this poem is that of A B B A, C D D C, E F F E, G H H G. There is enough continuity in this rhyme scheme to hold the poem together as a whole through the use of the pattern, however the changing of the actual rhyming words and the fact that, for instance, the A word is only repeated one time (as are all of the others) intensifies the poets feelings of loss over the change in his love's desires. Through the rhyming scheme, the poet is conveying the hopelessness of the two of them getting back together and repeating the beautiful love they once shared.
Stanzas one and two of the poem are full of imagery. The first stanza sets the scene for the poem “in a kingdom by the sea” (Poe 609) which makes you feel as if the story is going to have a “romantic” (Overview) feel to it. Then Annabel Lee comes into the story with “no other thought than to love and be loved by me” (Poe 609); This sentence is full of imagery in the sense that it makes you feel the immense capacity of love Annabel Lee had for the speaker if that was her only thought. In the second stanza the imagery takes a turn that shifts from loving and inviting to pain; The love between Annabel and the speaker was so strong that
The desire to express one’s feelings can be a complicated and stressful task. In the free imitation poem, "Hidden Heart," by Natalie Meyers, a young woman expresses the frustration she experiences when trying to write her loved one. Likewise, the first sequence of Sir Philip Sydney’s sonnet, "Astrophil and Stella," explores one man’s struggle to write from his heart and eliminate the yearning to select the perfect words for a letter written to his love, Stella. Both Astrophil and Meyers are distraught over what to say and how to say it. Since "Hidden Heart" is an imitation of Sydney’s sonnet, several parallels can be drawn between their common theme, word choice, and form. The "Hidden Hearts" theme of free expression, its diction, and structure, must be compared and contrasted with intertextual references from "Astrophil and Stella," in order to effectively analyze it.
The speaker uses metaphors to describe his mistress’ eyes to being like the sun; her lips being red as coral; cheeks like roses; breast white as snow; and her voices sounding like music. In the first few lines of the sonnet, the speaker view and tells of his mistress as being ugly, as if he was not attracted to her. He give...
There had been many muses to the world of poetry, may it be a person or even a perception on life. Love is one that prevails all in the musings and perhaps there is a reason for that. While there are some that are cynical in the way of love and how it affects a person, love can have many positive effects on the mood and behavior of an enamored individual.With works from well known poets such as Emily Dickinson, Walt Whitman, and even the bard himself, William Shakespeare, the subject of love jumps up from the pages as changing an individual. Not all these authors and word artists agree with how love warps the mind. May the subject of love come from words on paper, paint on a canvas, or even in the lives of these people, love can prevail and
In Elizabeth Browning’s poem ‘Sonnet 43’, Browning explores the concept of love through her sonnet in a first person narrative, revealing the intense love she feels for her beloved, a love which she does not posses in a materialistic manner, rather she takes it as a eternal feeling, which she values dearly, through listing the different ways she loves her beloved.
In “Sonnet XVII,” the text begins by expressing the ways in which the narrator does not love, superficially. The narrator is captivated by his object of affection, and her inner beauty is of the upmost significance. The poem shows the narrator’s utter helplessness and vulnerability because it is characterized by raw emotions rather than logic. It then sculpts the image that the love created is so personal that the narrator is alone in his enchantment. Therefore, he is ultimately isolated because no one can fathom the love he is encountering. The narrator unveils his private thoughts, leaving him exposed and susceptible to ridicule and speculation. However, as the sonnet advances toward an end, it displays the true heartfelt description of love and finally shows how two people unite as one in an overwhelming intimacy.
Love can be conveyed in many ways. It can be expressed through movements, gestures or even words on a paper. In William Shakespeare’s poems, “Sonnet 18” and “Sonnet 130,” both revolve around the idea of love, but are expressed in a different ways in terms of the mood, theme and the language used.