The renaissance was an explosion of culture that forced Europe out of the dark ages. One of the popular new types of literature was the sonnet: a fouteen line poem with a specific rhyme scheme written to earn a woman’s love. In sonnet 1 by Edmund Spenser, sonnet 31 by Philip Sidney, and sonnet 130 and 29 by William Shakespeare, the authors focus on romanticizing love in order to emphasize the importance of developing a relationship with a lady and earning her love. This is accomplished through the use of personification, similes, and allusions.
Spenser and Sidney both utilize personification in their sonnets. In Sonnet 1, Spenser explains how the paper that contains his sonnet is so lucky to be held by his love: “Happy ye leaves whenas
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The other parts of his life a miserable, but his true love makes his life happily. In addition, in Shakespeare’s sonnet 130, he goes against the traditional use of similes in sonnets and does not compare his lady to perfect things: “my mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun” (sonnet 130, Shakespeare, ln. 1). Shakespeare wrote about how true love looks in real life. Explains how even though she may have flaws it’s not perfect, their love is the most rare and the most real. He realizes that love is true love because flaws.
Allusions were also commonly used throughout sonnets. In Edmund Spenser's first sonnet you mentioned Helicon (Sonnet 1, Spenser, ln. 10). Helicon is a sacred place where the muses and Apollo reside. Poetry and inspiration for poetry comes from this holy place. The speaker says that his lady comes from Helicon. He compares her to the perfection that Greek gods and figures have. This demonstrates how beautiful and amazing his love is. Moreover, Sidney references Cupid: “that busy archer is sharp arrow tries” (Sonnet 31,Sidney, ln. 4). Cupid usually signifies new love, but it’s speaker is mocking him due to the pain of rejection. The sharp arrows have a negative connotation which results in a negative connotation about love. The speaker argues that love is not joyous because but is painful and full of heartbreak.
Spenser, Sidney and Shakespeare all portrayed the consequences of love,
In like manner, the last verse in Neruda’s sonnet, “My love: I love you for clarity, your dark” could be interpreted to mean that the speaker loves his beloved to continue being a mystery for him in so that he could find more beautiful qualities about her by focusing on her unattractive qualities first. Similarly, Shakespeare’s last couplet, “And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare as any she belied with false compare” display’s the speaker’s love for what is real rather than how his beloved ought to be. In brief, the imagery plays a huge part within both sonnets because it can give readers insight as to how the speakers think.
Shakespeare's My Mistress' Eyes Are Nothing Like the Sun Many authors compose sonnets about women whom they loved. Most of these authors embellish their women's physical characteristics by comparing them to natural wonders that we, as humans, find beautiful. Shakespeare's "My Mistress' Eyes Are Nothing Like the Sun" contradicts this idea, by stating that his mistress lacks most of the qualities other men wrongly praise their women for possessing. Shakespeare presents to one that true love recognizes imperfections and feels devotion regardless of flaws, while satirically expressing his personal thoughts on Petrarchan sonnets.
Shakespeare examines love in two different ways in Sonnets 116 and 130. In the first, love is treated in its most ideal form as an uncompromising force (indeed, as the greatest force in the universe); in the latter sonnet, Shakespeare treats love from a more practical aspect: it is viewed simply and realistically without ornament. Yet both sonnets are justifiable in and of themselves, for neither misrepresents love or speaks of it slightingly. Indeed, Shakespeare illustrates two qualities of love in the two sonnets: its potential and its objectivity. This paper will compare and contrast the two sonnets by Shakespeare and show how they represent two different attitudes to love.
“Sonnet 116” written by William Shakespeare is focusing on the strength and true power of love. Love is a feeling that sustainable to alterations, that take place at certain points in life, and love is even stronger than a breakup because separation cannot eliminate feelings. The writer makes use of metaphors expressing love as a feeling of mind not just heart as young readers may see it. To Shakespeare love is an immortal felling that is similar to a mark on a person’s life.
Within sonnet 116, Shakespeare personifies the abstract noun of love when he states ‘Whose worth’s unknown’. Through personifying his ideology of true love, it makes it increasingly
In "Sonnet 18," Shakespeare shows his audience that his love will be preserved through his "eternal lines" of poetry by comparing his love and poetry with a summer's day. Shakespeare then uses personification to emphasize these comparisons and make his theme clearer to his audience. Shakespeare also uses repetition of single words and ideas throughout the sonnet in order to stress the theme that his love and poetry are eternal, unlike other aspects of the natural world. Using the devices of metaphor, personification, repetition, and progression of tone, Shakespeare reveals his theme that the natural world is imperfect and transitory while his love is made eternal through his lines of poetry.
So the lover, the poet, treats the loved object, the young man, as he would himself. The loved object serves as a substitute for some unattained ideal. In the case of the sonnets, the ideal is love. Being in love allows the poet to have what he wants but could not acquire before and serves as a means of satisfying his self-love.
In Sonnet 18, Shakespeare employs a Petrarchan conceit to immortalize his beloved. He initiates the extended metaphor in the first line of the sonnet by posing the rhetorical
In modern times, youth and beauty is an image seen everywhere. For example, a Versace billboard, magazine ad, TV commercial, all of which displays images of beautiful people. But what happens when this beauty fades? Shakespeare in his 12th sonnet talks about his experience and fading beauty. The purpose of this poem is to encourage a young man to not lose his beauty to the ravages of time. In order to do this, one must reproduce so beauty will live.
Shakespeare’s “Sonnet 130” is often also referred to as “My mistress’ eyes,” which adds emphasis to the first line, “My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun.” As the opening line, this makes readers aware of what they are about to encounter throughout the sonnet. In this work Shakespeare is simply mocking the work of writers like Petrarch, and we as readers love it. Metaphors making comparisons to nature are often used to show the beauty of something when writing. William Shakespeare’s “Sonnet 130,” makes the same comparisons, however he makes the metaphors in favor of the natural features rather than his mistress. Shakespeare isn’t being rude to his mistress by doing so; he is taking things at face value and being blatantly honest.
The Astrophil and Stella sonnets 1 and 15 contemplate the author’s awareness as he tries to find inspiration to write. By exploring their own inspirations, in Shakespeare’s Sonnets 116 and 130, and “The Indifferent” mock the Petrarchan sonnet, whose theme of comparing women to things that are generally accepted as beautiful was used in many works of the English Renaissance, including: Amoretti sonnet 64, “The Sun Rising,” “Song,” “To His Coy Mistress,” and “Upon Julia’s Clothes.” In another venture of exploration into the author’s inspirations, Volpone was created as a comedy which parodies classical masque plays, such as Doctor Faustus, by characterizing the legacy hunters as birds of
This sonnet serves to invoke a strong sense of realism in love, arguing that as strong an intensity of emotion as may be held, may be held, without the need for delusions of grandeur, taking the view that trying to reconcile two essentially different and diverse things as equal is to do true justice to neither. The beloved in this case thus represents more the need for a character developed to challenge stereotype than an actual real-life woman,
“Sonnet 130” written by William Shakespeare, is one of his most well known poems and can be analyzed and broken apart in great depth. The poem is written in fourteen lines which makes it a sonnet. Like all of Shakespeare’s sonnets the meter is iambic pentameter. The rhyme scheme for “Sonnet 130” is ABAB CDCD EFEF GG. An overlaying theme for “Sonnet 130” is, “True love is based on how beautiful you find someone on the inside.” Shakespeare proves to have a great view on true love in this sonnet. He cares more about what’s on the inside rather than what’s on the outside. “Sonnet 130’s” theme can be proven by Shakespeare's use of poetic and literary devices, the tone and mood of the sonnet, and the motif of true love.
During the Renaissance period, most poets were writing love poems about their lovers/mistresses. The poets of this time often compared love to high, unrealistic, and unattainable beauty. Shakespeare, in his sonnet 18, continues the tradition of his time by comparing the speakers' love/mistress to the summer time of the year. It is during this time of the year that the flowers and the nature that surround them are at there peak for beauty. The theme of the poem is to show the speakers true interpretation of beauty. Beauties worst enemy is time and although beauty might fade it can still live on through a person's memory or words of a poem. The speaker realizes that beauty, like the subject of the poem, will remain perfect not in the
Shakespeare, who wrote the sonnets in 1609, expresses his own feelings through his greatest work of literature. The theme of love in the poems reflect thoughts from the Renaissance period. Love is one of many components of Shakespeare’s life shown in the sonnets. Love can be defined in many ways other than a strong affection for a lover. In Shakespeare’s sonnets, the concept of love can be seen through many uncommon means such as the love of life before death in “Sonnet 73,” love in marriage in “Sonnet 116,” love through sexual desire in “Sonnet 129,” and love through nature in “Sonnet 130,” proving that love can be expressed through many different feelings and emotions.