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analysis of love in shakespeare's sonnets
william shakespeare's portrayal of women
importance of inner beauty
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This piece of a sonnet by William Shakespeare tells us a lot about his idea of what love is.
In his time, people were swept away by outward beauty and wrote about it often in literature. Some of the other sonnet writers in Shakespeare’s time equated their woman’s beauty to almost a fairytale. They write about how their woman is perfect, as to almost compare them to the beauty of God or an angel. They usually embellished their woman a little bit and made them sound more extravagant then they probably really were. In the above sonnet, Shakespeare shuts down this idea of unimaginable beauty. He writes realistically about his mistress’ outward beauty. Shakespeare believed that inward beauties were entirely more important than outward beauties.
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We talked about writers such as Sidney, Marlowe, and Raleigh who all wrote about love and had their different opinions about it. For example, Marlowe wrote about wanting to get a woman to love and him and be with him forever. He wrote in a style that would try to woo the girl into wanting because of his profligate wording of her physical beauty. Shakespeare did not want anything to do with that. Shakespeare felt that a woman’s true qualities were derived from her character and what she had to offer other than her physical beauty. Things like patience, integrity, and loyalty would have been really great things to Shakespeare. We were given a packet full of sonnets and when we read the first few they are all about excessive physical beauty. Shakespeare does a really good of brining realism to love. He talks about what real love is and how each and every one of us could experience it, but we may …show more content…
Firstly, we watched the movie Much Ado About Nothing. This was a humorous movie that I really enjoyed. It was all about love and tragedy. One part of the movie really emphasized how Shakespeare felt about love. Benedict is questioning his love for Beatrice and while doing that, he starts listing off things that he would love in a woman. Basically all of the things he lists have nothing to do with outward beauty, they are all characteristics of inward beauty. Then, after he says all the traits he would like, Benedict adds in something along the lines of, “And her hair, well, whatever God wishes it to be.” This is a clear indicator that Benedict was not too concerned with the outward beauty of the woman he would like to fall in love with. We also looked at some other sonnets written by Shakespeare. In his sonnet, Let me not to the marriage of true minds, Shakespeare talks about how strong and enduring love can be and how it leads so many people. He claims that if the love between two people is true, then it will last forever. He then goes so far to say if he is proven wrong, then he takes back everything he has said and that no man has ever truly loved before. That is such as powerful line that rings very
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.
Shakespeare used little discretion within his sonnets and plays in regards to his expressions of desire. His sonnets tell the tale of what is believed to be a romantic interlude with a young male (Shakespeare’s Sonnets, 2011), but in Sonnet 130 Shakespeare espouses on the feminine form in explicit although unflattering, detail (2006. p. 507). . His description of his love is much kinder. One of Shakespeare’s most famous lines “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day? /Though art more lovely and more temperate:” (2006, p. 499) is much more flattering and represents the desire he feel for another
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
“Sonnet Eighteen” was one of the first of the Sonnets to become very well known. It “sets a fearful problem in turning it into prose”, because it is so straight forward and easy to comprehend (Rowse 39). Throughout this poem, the reader will acknowledge that Shakespeare “finds the human beauty “more lovely” and more lasting than nature’s” (Kastan 10). In the Sonnet, Shakespeare is comparing a woman to a summer’s day. He uses imagery to differentiate the harshness of summer and beauty of the woman. The audience can see the speaker’s perspective of youth and beauty throughout the lines in the
...uty which is impossible for any woman or man to match. Campion's poem reflects this impossible ideal that society inflicts on us. This woman in There is a Garden in Her Face could never really live up to the image that the speaker has created of her. The image is false, and so is his love because he is only focusing on her outward appearance. The speaker in Shakespeare's sonnet clearly is not in love with his mistress' looks. Everything about her is contrary to society's standards, but he understands the absurdity of these standards and rejects them. There is more to his mistress than meets the eye, and that is why he truly loves her.
This poem speaks of a love that is truer than denoting a woman's physical perfection or her "angelic voice." As those traits are all ones that will fade with time, Shakespeare exclaims his true love by revealing her personality traits that caused his love. Shakespeare suggests that the eyes of the woman he loves are not twinkling like the sun: "My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun" (1). Her hair is compared to a wire: "If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head" (3). These negative comparisons may sound almost unloving, however, Shakespeare proves that the mistress outdistances any goddess. This shows that the poet appreciates her human beauties unlike a Petrarchan sonnet that stresses a woman's cheek as red a rose or her face white as snow. Straying away from the dazzling rhetoric, this Shakespearean poem projects a humane and friendly impression and elicits laughter while expressing a truer love. A Petrarchan sonnet states that love must never change; this poem offers a more genuine expression of love by describing a natural woman.
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...
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.
Shakespeare’s themes are mostly conventional topics, such as love and beauty. Nevertheless, Shakespeare presents these themes in his own unique fashion, most notably by addressing the poems of beauty not to a fair maiden, but instead to a young man: ‘‘shall I compare thee to a summer’s day? Thou art more lovely and more temperate” (book). Shakespeare points out that the youth’s beauty is more perfect then the beauty of a summer day. It is also “more temperate”, in other words more gentle, more restrained whereas the summer’s day might have violent excesses in store. At first glance of sonnet 18, it’s pretty much certain that one would think Shakespeare is referring to a woman, not a man. The idea of a man describing another man with such choice of words is always seen with a different eye. Several even stated that Shakespeare is homosexual. Whichever the case may be, Shakespeare painted beauty in the most original matter. He dared to do what everybody else didn’t, or maybe feared to, and accomplished his goal with flying colors. Besides, in his sonnets, Shakespeare states that the young man was made for a woman and urges the man to marry so he can pass on h...
Sonnet number one hundred sixteen and number one hundred thirty provide a good look at what Shakespeare himself defines as love. The former describes the ever-enduring nature of true love, while the latter gives an example of this ideal love through the description of a woman who many call the “Dark Lady”. Through the combination of these two sonnets Shakespeare provides a consistent picture of what love should be like in order to “bear it out even to the edge of doom”(116, Ln: 12). To me the tern “maker” used by Sir Philip Sidney to describe the poets first and foremost duty would refer to the creation process, which produces the end text. The discourse of the poet is to take an emotion or event they up to that point was purely felt, and make it into flowing words, which in turn reproduce the initial emotion. The poet is therefore a “maker” of poems as well as emotion. This emotion would not be present however if the poet were not human experiencing the ups and downs of everyday life. Therefore I feel that the poet is first and foremost human, and therefore susceptible to human needs, feelings, and emotions, and secondly a maker.
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.
Therefore, because William Shakespeare’s “Sonnet 18” and Edmund Spenser’s “Sonnet 75” share the idea that love is sincere and eternal, they can be looked upon as similar in theme. However, although similar in theme, Shakespeare’s intent is portraying the true everlasting beauty of his love, which is already achieved, whereas Spenser concentrates more on trying to entice his desired love, remaining optimistic throughout the entire poem.
In addition, the sonnet is a statement of respect about the beauty of his beloved; summ...
Through the form of sonnet, Shakespeare and Petrarch both address the subject of love, yet there are key contrasts in their style, structure, and in the manner, each approaches their subjects. Moreover, in "Sonnet 130," Shakespeare, in fact, parodies Petrarch's style and thoughts as his storyteller describes his mistress, whose "eyes are in no way as the sun" (Shakespeare 1918). Through his English poem, Shakespeare seems to mock the exaggerated descriptions expanded throughout Petrarch’s work by portraying the speaker’s love in terms that are characteristic of a flawed woman not a goddess. On the other hand, upon a review of "Sonnet 292" from the Canzoniere, through “Introduction to Literature and Arts,” one quickly perceives that Petrarch's work is full of symbolism. However, Petrarch’s utilization of resemblance and the romanticizing of Petrarch's female subject are normal for the Petrarchan style.
That means, the approaches of poet’s love remain the same. In one place, he portrays beauty as conveying a great responsibility in the sonnets addressed to the young man. The poet has experienced what he thinks of as "the marriage of true minds," also known as true love, that his love remains strong, and that he believes that it’s eternal. Nothing will stop their love, as in the symbols like all the ships, stars and stormy seas that fill the landscape of the poem and so on what can affect to their love. The poet is too much attracted with the young man’s beauty, though this indicates to something really bad behavior. But in another place, Shakespeare makes fun of the dark lady in sonnet 130. He explains that his lover, the dark lady, has wires for hair, bad breath, dull cleavage, a heavy step, pale lips and so on, but to him, real love is, the sonnet implies, begins when we accept our lovers for what they are as well as what they are not. But other critics may not agree with this and to them, beauty may define to something