Shakespearen Sonnets
William Shakespeare is one of the most famous authors of all times. His works span a wide range of formats, styles, and themes. While best known for plays, such as the tragedy "Romeo and Juliet," he was also a composer of poetry. To many people, these poems constitute the greatest of Shakespeare's accomplishments. They were often highly emotional in nature, and dealt with timeless ideas such as beauty, love, and death. Each one of the poems is unique. Yet for all their differences, many of the poems share common themes and ideas about life. This is evident when one examines three of William Shakespeare's 154 sonnets. While distinctly different, "Sonnets 116", "Sonnets 130", and "Sonnets 138" are similar in their style and format, their strong love theme, and their insights as to the true nature of love.
Each of the three sonnets is obviously different. "Sonnet 116" offers the reader a definition about love. It describes what Shakespeare believes to be its true qualities. In the second poem, "Sonnet 130", Shakespeare describes the many imperfections in his mistress. He ends the poem by revealing that he loves her regardless of the flaws. In the final poem, "Sonnet 138", Shakespeare brings to light the faults of two lovers. At the end of the sonnet, Shakespeare describes how their faults are overcome by lies, which are sustained by love.
Although the poems appear to be quite different on the surface, underneath they share many common elements. The most obvious of these is in the style of the poems. Each of the poems is written in the format of a sonnet, which is a 14-line verse written in iambic pentameter. Furthermore, each one examines different aspects of a single idea that get...
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...ture and Ourselves - Second Edition. Ed.
Gloria Henderson, Bill Day, and Sandra Waller. New York: Longman, 1997. 342.
Shakespeare, William. "Sonnet 130." Literature and Ourselves - Second Edition. Ed.
Gloria Henderson, Bill Day, and Sandra Waller. New York: Longman, 1997. 343.
Shakespeare, William. "Sonnet 138." Literature and Ourselves - Second Edition. Ed.
Gloria Henderson, Bill Day, and Sandra Waller. New York: Longman, 1997. 343.
Outline
Thesis: While distinctly different, "Sonnets 116", "Sonnets 130", and "Sonnets 138" are similar in their style and format, their strong love theme, and their insights as to the true nature of love.
1.Style
A: Iambic Pentameter
B: Idea gets resolved in last two lines
2. Theme
A: Love is unchangeable
B: Love overcomes flaws
3. Theme
A: Love overcomes time
4. Conclusion
In “Sonnet,” Billy Collins satirizes the classical sonnet’s volume to illustrate love in only “…fourteen lines…” (1). Collins’s poem subsists as a “Sonnet,” though there exists many differences in it countering the customarily conventional structure of a sonnet. Like Collins’s “Sonnet,” Shakespeare’s “Sonnet 130” also faces incongruities from the classic sonnet form as he satirizes the concept of ideal beauty that was largely a convention of writings and art during the Elizabethan era. Although these poem venture through different techniques to appear individually different from the classic sonnet, the theme of love makes the poems analogous.
"Poetry is the revelation of a feeling that the poet believes to be interior and personal [but] which the reader recognizes as his own." (Salvatore Quasimodo). There is something about the human spirit that causes us to rejoice in shared experience. We can connect on a deep level with our fellow man when we believe that somehow someone else understands us as they relate their own joys and hardships; and perhaps nowhere better is this relationship expressed than in that of the poet and his reader. For the current assignment I had the privilege (and challenge) of writing an imitation of William Shakespeare’s "Sonnet 87". This poem touched a place in my heart because I have actually given this sonnet to someone before as it then communicated my thoughts and feelings far better than I could. For this reason, Sonnet 87 was an easy choice for this project, although not quite so easy an undertaking as I endeavored to match Shakespeare’s structure and bring out his themes through similar word choice.
topic sentence: The imagery contained in both sonnet 43 by Elizabeth Barret Browning and Sonnet 116 by William Shakespeare, while both used to portray there love, the imagery still differs between poems.
Light/Dark. Comfort/Despair. Love/Hate. These three pairs of words manage to sum up William Shakespeare's "Sonnet 116" and "Sonnet 147," while also demonstrating the duality of Shakespeare's heart. "Sonnet 116" reveals to a careful reader the aspects of Shakespeare's concept of what ideal love is. However, "Sonnet 147" shows the danger of believing in this ideal form of love. These two sonnets perfectly complement and clarify each other while also giving the reader insight into William Shakespeare's life.
A sonnet is a fixed patterned poem that expresses a single, complete thought or idea. Sonnet comes from the Italian word “sonetto”, which means “little song”. Poem, on the other hand, is English writing that has figurative language, and written in separate lines that usually have a repeated rhyme, but don’t all the time. The main and interesting thing is that these two poems or sonnets admire and compare the beauty of a specific woman, with tone, repetition, imagery, and sense of sound.
Sonnet 130 is Shakespeare’s harsh yet realistic tribute to his quite ordinary mistress. Conventional love poetry of his time would employ Petrarchan imagery and entertain notions of courtly love. Francis Petrarch, often noted for his perfection of the sonnet form, developed a number of techniques for describing love’s pleasures and torments as well as the beauty of the beloved. While Shakespeare adheres to this form, he undermines it as well. Through the use of deliberately subversive wordplay and exaggerated similes, ambiguous concepts, and adherence to the sonnet form, Shakespeare creates a parody of the traditional love sonnet. Although, in the end, Shakespeare embraces the overall Petrarchan theme of total and consuming love.
A sonnet is a lyric poem of fourteen lines, following one of several set of rhyme-schemes. Critics of the sonnet have recognized varying classifications, but the two characteristic sonnet types are the Italian type (Petrarchan) and the English type (Shakespearean). Shakespeare is still nowadays seen as in idol in English literature. No one can read one of his works and be left indifferent. His way of writing is truly fascinating. His sonnets, which are his most popular work, reflect several strong themes. Several arguments attempt to find the full content of those themes.
The two poems do seem to have a similar theme; both are focused around describing the poet’s muse. However, Sonnet 18 is not about love at all—Shakespeare makes no reference to love in the poem; he is merely describing how beautiful this individual is. Sonnet 130, on the other hand, is a true love poem, making direct mention to it in the couplet: “And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare / As any she belied with false compare.” Surprisingly enough, Sonnet 18 shows more the love Shakespeare has for himself and his writing ability. In the last three lines: “When in eternal lines to time thou growest: / So long as men can breathe or eyes can see, / So long lives this and this gives life to thee.” he is basically saying that in his eternal verse his muse will forever live. And although the couplet is sweet, a different approach to its meaning would be: “As long as people can read, they will read my poetry!” Sonnets were created to show-off a poet’s skill and not their love—in Sonnet 18 it is most apparent.
John Donne and William Shakespeare are each notorious for their brilliant poetry. William Shakespeare is said to be the founder of proper sonnets, while John Donne is proclaimed to be the chief metaphysical poet. Each poet has survived the changing centuries and will forever stand the test of time. Although both John Donne and William Shakespeare share a common theme of love in their poems, they each use different tactics to portray this underlying meaning. With a closer examination it can be determined that Donne and Shakespeare have similar qualities in their writing.
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.
Shakespeare's sonnets are a romantic and charming series of poems. His use of rhyme and passionate, eloquent language serve to illuminate his strong feelings. These techniques were probably the most fluent way for such a writer as him to express the immeasurable love that he obviously felt for his mysterious lady. Examining the numerous ways Shakespeare found to describe it, the reader believes that this love was undoubtedly lasting and authentic. He often made heart-felt comments about his emotions that could also suit lovers in the present day. Because of this, and the fact that people read them yet, Shakespeare's sonnets are timeless and universal, just like the concept of love itself.
From the works of William Shakespeare and Edmund Spenser it is clear that some similarities are apparent, however the two poets encompass different writing styles, as well as different topics that relate to each other in their own unique ways. In Shakespeare’s “Sonnet 18” and Spenser’s “Sonnet 75”, both poets speak of love in terms of feelings and actions by using different expressive views, allowing the similar topics to contain clear distinctions. Although Edmund Spenser’s “Sonnet 75” and William Shakespeare’s “Sonnet 18” relate in the sense that love is genuine and everlasting, Spenser suggests love more optimistically, whereas Shakespeare focuses on expressing the beauty and stability of love.
William Shakespeare’s sonnets are renowned as some of the greatest poetry ever written. He wrote a total of 154 sonnets that were published in 1609. Shakespearean sonnets consider similar themes including love, beauty, and the passing of time. In particular, William Shakespeare’s Sonnet 75 and Sonnet 116 portray the theme of love through aspects of their form and their display of metaphors and similes. While both of these sonnets depict the theme of love, they have significantly contrasting ideas about the same theme.
Almost four hundred years after his death, William Shakespeare's work continues to live on through his readers. He provides them with vivid images of what love was like during the 1600's. Shakespeare put virtually indescribable feelings into beautiful words that fit the specific form of the sonnet. He wrote 154 sonnets; all of which discuss some stage or feature of love. Love was the common theme during the time Shakespeare was writing. However, Shakespeare wrote about it in such a way that captivated his reader and made them want to apply his words to their romances. What readers do not realize while they compare his sonnets to their real life relationships is that Shakespeare was continually defying the conventions of courtly love in his writings.
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