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shakespeares view of love
Analysis of Shakespeare
what did shakespeare convery through sonnets
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William Shakespeare- Mysterious Romantic
On an unknown April night, in 1564, at an unpretentious home in Henley St. in the serene town of Stratford, England Isle of Wight, Mary Arden and John Shakespeare gave light to a poet, who would later be referred to as a Literary Genius. Who is William Shakespeare? The known facts of Shakespeare's life are few, but nearly four hundred years after his death, William Shakespeare's art continues to inspire his readers. Much of Shakespeare’s praise is due to the wonderful words of his short sonnet poems, and how Shakespeare is able to apply virtually indescribable feelings into divine words. A sonnet is a fourteen-line poem, which Shakespeare traditionally wrote in iambic pentameter. Throughout his life Shakespeare wrote a total of 154 sonnets. All of his sonnets project some stage or aspect of love. Still, Shakespeare’s love life is a very contradicting topic that has been the subject of recurring debate. Even if the world lacks information regarding Shakespeare, his sonnets are evidence of his sexuality. What readers fail to realize while they assimilate his sonnets to their real life relationships is that Shakespeare was continuously defying the conventions of courtly love in his writings. This is why it can be deduced that the main theme of Shakespeare’s sonnets is love and how it reflects his sexuality.
The originality of Shakespeare's sonnets is clearly displayed through his first seventeen sonnets, or the Procreation Sonnets. They are written to a young man, known as the 'Fair Lord' or 'Fair Youth'. Throughout these sonnets Shakespeare is urging and persuades his breathtaking friend to get married and start a family, thereby passing down his beauty to the next generation. It is...
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...k Lady, but there are fact that are perfectly clear such as the fact that William Shakespeare was a romantic poet. Love is recognizably portrayed throughout his 154 sonnets, which are all clearly based on the different types of love that he explored all throughout his life. Shakespeare expressed his love to marriage and family, to a young boy, and finally to a dark lady. Therefore, it clear that the main theme in William Shakespeare’s sonnets is love.
Works Cited
Andrews, Hannah. "William Shakespeare." The Academy of American Poets. N.p., n.d. Web. 16 Feb 2011. .
Greenblatt, Stephen. "William Shakespeare." The Norton
Anthology of English Literature. M.H. Abrams. Print.
Mowat , Barbara A. "Shakespeare's Sonnets ." Folger Shakespeare Library n. pag. Web. 14 Jan 2011.
In Shakespeare’s first sonnet he declares his admiration and adoration towards this mans beauty, begging him to take pity on the world and reproduce to share with the rest of the world and generations to come his beauty that can be passed on through a child. He also compares in his 18th sonnet the beauty of another man with a summers day, stating that he is in fact more beautiful than a summer day because summer’s beauty ends and this mans beauty never will. It will forever be etched on paper in a poem Shakespeare has written. This shows his admiration and love toward these men, without any romantic or sexual interest. We can tell he has no sexual interest because he explains in sonnet 18 that mother nature got overly excited creating this perfect of a being, and added an extra part that was of no use to shakespeare. There is also no indication that these men have any personal connection to shakespeare, pushing away the idea of a love involving personality. This type of love can be eternal or temporary, all depending on the people who are a part of it. A type of love that is undeniably most common is the kindred
Wilson, John Dover. An Introduction to the Sonnets of Shakespeare: For the Use of Historians
William Shakespeare's sonnets deal with two very distinct individuals: the blond young man and the mysterious dark-haired woman. The young man is the focus of the earlier numbered sonnets while the latter ones deal primarily with the dark-haired woman. The character of the young man and a seductive mistress are brought together under passionate circumstances in Shakespeare's "Sonnet 42." The sexual prowess of the mistress entangles both Shakespeare and the young man in her web of flesh. This triangular sonnet brings out Shakespeare's affection for both individuals. His narcissistic ideal of delusional love for the young man is shown through diction and imagery, metrical variation and voice, contained in three quatrains and one couplet.
At the time of its writing, Shakespeare's one hundred thirtieth sonnet, a highly candid, simple work, introduced a new era of poems. Shakespeare's expression of love was far different from traditional sonnets in the early 1600s, in which poets highly praised their loved ones with sweet words. Instead, Shakespeare satirizes the tradition of comparing one's beloved to the beauties of the sun. From its opening phrase "My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun", shocks the audience because it does not portray a soft, beautiful woman. Despite the negative connotations of his mistress, Shakespeare speaks a true woman and true love. The sonnet is a "how-to" guide to love.
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.
Much has been made (by those who have chosen to notice) of the fact that in Shakespeare's sonnets, the beloved is a young man. It is remarkable, from a historical point of view, and raises intriguing, though unanswerable, questions about the nature of Shakespeare's relationship to the young man who inspired these sonnets. Given 16th-Century England's censorious attitudes towards homosexuality, it might seem surprising that Will's beloved is male. However, in terms of the conventions of the poetry of idealized, courtly love, it makes surprisingly little difference whether Will's beloved is male or female; to put the matter more strongly, in some ways it makes more sense for the beloved to be male.
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.
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.
Shakespeare, William. "Sonnet 15". The Broadview Anthology of British Literture. Volume A. Petersborough, Ontario: Broadview Press, 2008.
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.
Bender, Robert M., and Charles L. Squier, eds. The Sonnet: An Anthology. New York: Washington Square P, 1987.
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
William Shakespeare (1564-1616) lived in a time of religious turbulence. During the Renaissance people began to move away from the Church. Authors began to focus on the morals of the individual and on less lofty ideals than those of the Middle Ages. Shakespeare wrote one-hundred fifty-four sonnets during his lifetime. Within these sonnets he largely explored romantic love, not the love of God. In Sonnet 29 Shakespeare uses specific word choice and rhyme to show the reader that it is easy to be hopeful when life is going well, but love is always there, for rich and poor alike, even when religion fails.