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Free College Essays - Analysis of William Shakespeare's Sonnet 19

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William Shakespeare is considered to be one of the most significant English poets and dramatists of all time. Shakespeare is credited with writing 36-38 dramatic works and many sonnets.
In most of the sonnets the form is of three separate quatrains and a closing couplet for emotional and dramatic climax. Some sonnets seem open and addressed to the world. Others are too cryptic and personal to be intelligible. Sonnets 18-125 deal gradually with many themes associate with a handsome young man. The poet enjoys his friendship and promises to immortalize him through his poems.
“Sonnet 19" is addressed to time and is dedicated to a very special friend. In the first quatrain of the sonnet, the author talks about the devastating effects of time: …show more content…

Shakespeare uses very concrete and vivid imagery to describe the passing of time. For example time wrips the fangs from the tiger´s mouth. According to Stephen Booth, time also burns the blood of the secular Phoenix, the mythical bird with the capacity to be reborn from its ashes.
In the next four line grouping, the author explains that time, depending on its will, delivers both good and bad to humankind. Personifying time as “swift footed” (6) Shakespeare says that it affects all things equally, even the “sweets” (7) which fade. “Sweets” is a direct reference to the friend to whom the sonnet is dedicated. Time may do as it pleases, says Shakespeare, with one exception.
In the next quatrain he forbids that time make his beloved grow old. According to Shakespeare carving wrinkles on his “...love´s fair brow” (9) is a crime. The use of the term crime suggests the strong feelings Shakespeare has for his friend. The poet asks that time spare his friend whom he idolizes and considers beautiful. The author believes that his friend can serve as a model for future men.
In the last lines of the sonnet, the writer accepts that time will follow its natural course no matter how much he begs that it do otherwise. Shakespeare writes: “...despite thy wrong / My love shall in my verse ever live young” (13-14). Although time will not preserve his friend, Shakespeare is able to successfully challenge time´s power

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