Millay Sonnet 2 Figurative Language

Sonnet 30 brings to mind an image of a man reminiscing the experiences of his past. Soon after the setting shifts from silence to grief and regret for ventures never completed and desires never fulfilled. The fear of this is clearly visible in the poet’s present consciousness as he experiences and suffers an intense nostalgic pain for time he may no longer reclaim. The idea of this sonnet is expanded with the second quatrain. The poet further expands his pain reminiscing about people who had once walked in his life but never will. As he flips through memories, the pain of loss is once more relived. These sights that he refers to are friends who have given into death; and the emptiness of love makes reference to places, possessions, and events that can never be re-experienced. The third quatrain, although not contributing new content, increases the significance of the poem’s central idea. The act of remembering and recalling memories that once cause sorrow initiate the feeling to be reborn into the present rather than stay in the past. They become just as painful as they initially once were. Although the octet, first eight lines of the sonnet, develops the subject while the sestet, the last six lines, leads to a climax or in other words a solution, Shakespeare does not follow this traditional form. His first twelve lines of the sonnet introduce the poet’s

Sonnets 60 and 64 are about the effects of time. This is a recurrent theme in Shakespeare's poems. Through the use of imagery, Shakespeare provides relatable experiences to describe the passage of time. Sonnet 60 provides three examples of the passage of time the first is waves moving towards a shore, the second is a child growing to maturity, and the third is time's effects on the beauty of youth. Sonnet 64 provides three of Shakespeare's personal experiences the first is time's effects on towers and brass, the second is the ocean and a shore, the third is the change of condition of things. Both sonnets have similarities and differences in themes, structure, and speech acts.

In "Sonnet 73", the speaker uses a series of metaphors to characterize what he perceives to be the nature of his old age. This poem is not simply a procession of interchangeable metaphors; it is the story of the speaker slowly coming to grips with the finality of his age and his impermanence in time.

After reading the Carlos Salgado (2013) essay about the two sonnets the areas of needed improvement is visible. Carlos’s essay is well organized, talking about Shakespeare’s “Sonnet 30” and then talking about Millay’s “Sonnet”. The order of organization provides a better impact and flow to the overall essay. Salgado talks about the main concept, “time as one filled with much sorrow and loss”, of Shakespeare’s “Sonnet 30” in the first body paragraph and then talks about Millay’s “Sonnet” in the second body paragraph. Salgado also does a good job of using quotes as evidence and backup. When describing “Sonnet 30,” the writer says, “The speaker recounts his, “remembrance of things past,” (2) saying he has, “the lack of many a thought”. Both quotes are well integrated into one sentence demonstrating that the level of support for the essay is critical. From the essay written by Carlos Salgado, it shows the absence of a well thought out layout and quoted material in Similarity and Differences in Shakespeare and Millay Sonnets.

       The theme, in Sonnet 73, is the poet's aging. Each quatrain develops an image of lateness, of approaching extinction - of a season, of a day, and of a fire, but they also apply to a life (Abrams et al. 867). The poet compares his age to three images through the quatrains: autumn, the dying of the year (first quatrain); the dying of the fire (third quatrain). The first line draws a picture of himself, "in me," and in a certain time, "That time of year," of his life (surely, he is old now). We can see that the

Edna St. Vincent Millay’s “Sonnet IV” follows many of the conventions of the traditional Petrarchan sonnet. It follows the traditional rhyming scheme and octet, sestet structure. However it challenges the conventions of the typical subject of the Italian sonnet, unrequited love. In the octet at the beginning of the poem Millay uses images that give a sense of transience and in the ending sestet of the sonnet she contrasts the sense of impermanence given earlier with the idea that the speaker cannot forget the smiles and words of their ex-lover. This contrast between permanence and transience illustrates Millay’s interest in a fugacious relationship with everlasting memories. After further analysis of Millay’s highly structured rhyming scheme which puts emphasis on the last words of each line. She uses these words to further express her interest in exploring impermanent relationships by using words that are associated with an end or death.

‘Sonnet 116’ by William Shakespeare and ‘What Lips My Lips Have Kissed, And Where, And Why” by Edna St. Vincent Millay are both sonnets that discuss companionship and a glimpse of the poets’ experiences. In ‘Sonnet 116’, Shakespeare illustrates how capability is weakened by its metaphysical stereotype and ideals such as, love which never seems to wither away according to Shakespeare while on the contrary, in ‘What Lips My Lips Have Kissed, And Where, And Why” Millay feeds on the chaos between the ideal of love and its harsh reality, heartbreak. Both poets seem to be love struck but there is a significant difference in the two. I will compare and contrast ‘Sonnet 116’ by William Shakespeare and ‘What Lips My Lips Have Kissed, And Where, And Why” by Edna St. Vincent Millay. I will also inquire and analyze why this particular form of poetry established different effects.

William Shakespeare's "Sonnet 73: That Time of Year Thou Mayest in Me Behold" is a sonnet that examines the fears and anxieties that surround growing old and dying -- a topic that resonates within us all. Shakespeare's use of metaphor to illustrate decay and passing are striking, and sets a somber tone throughout. He uses the season of Fall, the coming of night, and the burning out of a flame as metaphors for old age and death, and then uses the last two lines to suggest that we should love and cherish life while we can.

The second sonnet continues the argument and plea from sonnet one. This time through the imagery of military, winter, and commerce. Once again, time is the great enemy, besieging the youth’s brow, digging trenches in his face and ravaging his good looks. Beauty is conceived of as a treasure that decays unless, through love, its natural increase. By marrying and having children is made possible. The poet tries to scare the young man to marry and have children by showing him his future. When he is forty years old he will be nothing but a “tatter’d weed, of small worth held” because he will be alone and childless. The only thing that the young will have to look back for is his self-absorbed “Lusty days,” empty because

The lover is described as "more temperate" in line 2 and therefore less prone to vary between extremes.

Shakespeare’s sonnets portray a multitude of different emotions during different times of the narrator’s life. In Sonnet 73, Shakespeare’s main emotion is sadness because he is aging and will soon no longer be able to write the poetry about the person he is talking to throughout the sonnet. While he has many different kinds of poems with different emotions, his theme of this love for this person comes across throughout many of them. He seems to want to continue to immortalize this person, and the love he has for them. Throughout the poem, he is actually trying to look at himself through objectively, and in this see what this person that he loves might see. During this analysis, I would like to argue how this theme is conveyed sonnet, while analyzing the different aspects of it.

William Shakespeare’s Sonnet #55 is a Shakespearian sonnet. It contains three quatrains, or four line stanzas, and ends with a couplet. The poem is written in iambic pentameter William Shakespeare’s Sonnet #55 is a Shakespearian sonnet. It contains three quatrains, or four line stanzas, and ends with a couplet. The poem is written in iambic pentameter.

Shakespeare’s sonnet 60 expresses the inevitable end that comes with time and uses this dark truth to express his hopefulness that his poetry will carry his beloved’s beauty and worth into the future in some way so that it may never die. This love poem is, as all sonnets are, fourteen lines. Three quatrains form these fourteen lines, and each quatrain consists of two lines. Furthermore, the last two lines that follow these quatrains are known as the couplet. This sonnet has the rhyme scheme of ABAB CDCD EFEF GG, as most Shakespearean sonnets follow. In each of the three quatrains, Shakespeare discusses a different idea. In this particular sonnet, the idea is how time continues to pass on, causing everything to die. The couplet connects these ideas to one central theme, this theme being Shakespeare’s hope for the beauty of his beloved’s immortality through his poetry’s continuation into future times.

     The sonnet, being one of the most traditional and recognized forms of poetry, has been used and altered in many time periods by writers to convey different messages to the audience. The strict constraints of the form have often been used to parallel the subject in the poem. Many times, the first three quatrains introduce the subject and build on one another, showing progression in the poem. The final couplet brings closure to the poem by bringing the main ideas together. On other occasions, the couplet makes a statement of irony or refutes the main idea with a counter statement. It leaves the reader with a last impression of what the author is trying to say.

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