Shakespeare 's Differing Opinions Of Preservation

One of the most inauthentic sonnets of the Elizabethan Era is that of Shakespeare’s Sonnet 130. “My Mistress’s eyes,” fails to provide an accurate portrayal of love and the unencumbered passion that is typically seen in many of the traditional sonnets of his time, such as that of Sonnet 18. Unlike Sonnet 18 which testifies a beauty which transcends the heavens, Sonnet 130 merely satirizes the unequivocal devotion to one’s love, as well as love itself, found in many traditional sonnets during the Elizabethan Era. The sharply contrasted styles of Shakespeare’s Sonnet 18 and Sonnet 130 are exemplified within the opening lines, where Shakespeare opens both sonnets with a traditional comparison.

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.

It has been over 400 years since William Shakespeare’s death in 1616, and it is continually debated whether or not his works of literature are still relevant. Shakespeare not only built a framework for the universal themes of life and human nature, but he also engaged in a role involved in transforming the English language. Furthermore, a number of words and phrases spoken today are derived from various Shakespearean plays. The phenomenon behind Shakespeare remains relevant in our current society; his works are an essential piece in understanding the themes of love, loss, betrayal, and tragedy. The essence of Shakespeare's plays can be described as “not of an age, but for all time,” according to Ben Jonson.

A sonnet is a poem of fourteen lines that rhyme in a particular pattern. William Shakespeare’s sonnets were the only non-dramatic poetry that he wrote. Shakespeare used sonnets within some of his plays, but his sonnets are best known as a series of one hundred and fifty-four poems. The series of one hundred and fifty-four poems tell a story about a young aristocrat and a mysterious mistress. Many people have analyzed and contemplated about the significance of these “lovers”. After analysis of the content of both the “young man” sonnets and the “dark lady sonnets”, it is clear that the poet, Shakespeare, has a great love for the young man and only lusts after his mistress.

In 2010 Billy Collins writes Sonnet, a piece of literary work I consider to be the antihero of sonnets. Collins ironically follows neither the constructs of a Shakespearean nor Petrarchan Sonnet throughout. He also creatively breathes new life into a strict art form while rejecting the historical rules a sonnet must follow in this work. Upon further review of Sonnet, it becomes clear that this deliberate rule breaking is a skilled nod & side-step to historic norms and a promotion of a new age of creativity in the making of a sonnet.

William Shakespeare, arguably the greatest language in the English language and England’s national poet, has written numerous histories, tragedies, comedies and poems. Throughout his plays, his use of dramatic irony, immaculate word choice and wording, and his vast imagination has made him a successful playwright even in his time. Shakespeare’s scripts for his theatrical company, needed to pertain to the needs and fascinations of the Elizabethan audience. It is safe to assume that all his sonnets, poetic speeches, electrifying action and soliloquies in his play were created for the delicate and quickly appreciative of language Elizabethans of his time. A particular example out of the many soliloquies

Therefore, Edward De Vere is a strong contender s an alternative writer to Shakespearean work.

In the sonnet the speaker’s tone is melancholic and disheartened which is emphasized through the speaker’s choice of diction, “disgrace” and “outcast” to identify himself. This particular use of diction emits a tone of mourning and solitude, rendering questions of the source of his sorrow. The speaker proceeds to answer this question at the volta, specifically in the final couplet, “For thy sweet love remember'd such wealth brings/That then I scorn to change my state with kings.” (Shakespeare) To further elaborate, the speaker’s use of past tense and choice of

The value and impact of human life is a topic explored many times in Shakespearian works, and is put to words especially memorably in the play Macbeth by William Shakespeare, during which Macbeth delivers a soliloquy on the meaninglessness of human life. He compares life to a “brief candle” (V.v.24), and decides that the time of death is irrelevant since we must all eventually pass. This soliloquy is essential to the understanding of Macbeth’s inner thoughts on spiritual and moral matters, as is its communication. The tone and presentation allows the audience to feel Macbeth’s sense of hopelessness, anger and self-justification. Through his final soliloquy certain stylistic choices are made by Shakespeare to draw attention to both the futility

William Shakespeare; most people say that he is a great play writer. Some people say

Shakespeare, in his procreation sonnets created a renewed sense of life into one man, whom was the center reason he wrote the seventeen sonnets. These pro life or procreation sonnets revolve around a central theme and a central argument of marrying, as well as the producing of new life. Shakespeare is able to create this central theme of marrying and production of new life through several well used literary elements. Allegory, parallelism and repetition, all used in the individual sonnets and the work put together as a whole to create the central theme of procreation and pro life.

This sonnet initially appealed to me because I really liked the metaphors and figurative language, later on, when I started to think about the deeper meaning of the sonnet, I was interested in how Shakespeare chose to convey his understanding of time’s relationship to humanity through the metaphors that initially drew me in. The central theme of the sonnet is how time gives the gift of life; however, as it moves forward and time takes back the gift of life no one is able to escape the ultimate end, which is death. Instead of using a singular central metaphor to express his ideas, Shakespeare changes time into a wave, a child and a killer, through similes, metaphors, and personification, to illustrate his interpretation of time’s effect on humanity.

Shakespeare’s Sonnets goes against the orthodoxy of religious authority when Shakespeare suggests, in “Sonnet 55,” that poets possess powers typically associated with God, such as giving life. He writes, “’Gainst death and all oblivious enmity/ Shall you pace forth; your praise shall still find room/ Even in the eyes of all posterity/ That wear this world out to the ending doom,” implying that the poem is capable of providing immortality, even if only through memory (55). This elevates the poet, himself, to a respectable and powerful position, while simultaneously diminishing the authority of other forms of art and commemoration. In “Sonnet 73” and “Sonnet 130,”

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.

Sonnet 106,“When in the chronicle of wasted time,” begins with the first quatrain recounting the subjects, ladies and knights, that were used by chroniclers of the time in their writing. Similarly, the second quatrain describes the physical beauty being a focus for the poems of the writers before him which continues in the third quatrain, expressing the prosperity of the writers by giving credit to fate due to them lacking the essential skills. The speaker ends the sonnet with couplets articulating the present time of the speaker himself and how indescribable the beauty of his subject is. Beauty is a wide topic that is present in the sonnet, especially the aspect of physical beauty. The description between the subjects is compared without the right words to express the speaker's current subject. In William Shakespeare's “Sonnet 106: When in he chronicle of wasted time,” the speaker focuses on the irony of writing about physical beauty that cannot be captured in words.