Sonnet 17 and Sonnet 55: Shakespeare’s Differing Opinion of Preservation
Two constant themes throughout this collection of sonnets is death and preservation. Shakespeare battles with the idea of how to preserve not only the beauty of his subject, but also his work without losing value and merit. Sonnet 17 and Sonnet 55 share the common idea that preservation is necessary and important, but each take different approaches to this preservation. From Sonnet 17 to Sonnet 55, Shakespeare grows confident in his craft and begins to develop a different ideology when it comes to preservation. In this paper, I will compare and contrast Sonnet 17 and Sonnet 55 and thoroughly examine Shakespeare’s changing preservation ideology.
Sonnet 17 focuses
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The speaker in Sonnet 17 doesn’t only focus on the importance of the child for the subject, but also the stake they hold in the child. As stated the poet is fearful. He is worried about preserving his craft and his personal legacy. At this moment he doesn’t understand his true worth as a writer and the power his words hold. He doesn’t understand that they legacy of his subject can live in his words. But he learns in Sonnet 55.
In Sonnet 55, Shakespeare’s confidence as a writer begins to blossom. This is proven in the first two lines of the poem where he says, “Not marble nor the gilded monuments/Of princes shall outlive this powerful rhyme”. One can’t get more cocky than that. Shakespeare sets the tone. He lets his confidence shine through and makes sure that nothing is hidden when it comes to his ability and the power his words hold. He begins to understand that the legacy of the subject can be preserved in a poem, if captured correctly. He goes on to iterate that his words can stand the test of time because words can’t be destroyed saying, “than unswept stone besmeared with sluttish time/When waste war shall statues overturn” (line 4,5). The speaker is saying that the the tangible things can be destroyed and in some ways the subject should feel flattered that he [Shakespeare] decided to preserve his legacy in such an indestructible way. He has an understand that nothing lasts forever, even humans.
Both “Raising Voices for Cecil the Lion” by National Public Radio author Barbara J. King and William Golding’s Lord of the Flies have an underlying theme of how society works and comes together to deal with a threat or problem. They both show that people do tend to unite on sides of an issue.
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
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.
Therefore, Edward De Vere is a strong contender s an alternative writer to Shakespearean work.
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,”
The lesson to be learned in this specific sonnet is the idea of the immortality of literature. The entire poem is masked by the idea of praise for the addressee. The language of the poem, the destructiveness, suggests the survivability of the poem itself. Shakespeare is using
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
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.
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.
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
Finally the heroic couplet contradicts the rest of the sonnet in stating that Shakespeare thinks he has found an exception to time’s ability to end everything and
The high school I attended in Hawaii was largely underfunded and did not have the materials necessary to help prepare me for college. In fact, my old high school holds a college readiness index score of 8.7 out of 100 on US News & World Report. Once I recognized that I was in a poor learning environment, I seized an opportunity to transfer from Konawaena High School to Garfield High School (Seattle) in order to better position myself for college. Subsequent to transferring, I enrolled in Running Start courses at Seattle Central College and sought out help to plot my next steps. In addition to applying to several Colleges I was compelled to apply for scholarships, which paid off because I am now a recipient of the Gates Millennium Scholarship.
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.
William Shakespeare; most people say that he is a great play writer. Some people say
Naturally, Shakespeare’s very first Sonnet deals with themes of procreation and immortality, literally and figuratively birthing his series of Sonnets. Ideas of Genesis, or the creation of the world, show strong traces throughout the poem and serve as the piece’s main focus according to literary critic Helen Vendler. The sonnet also deals with the logistics of beauty; we want the most beautiful people to have children, so their beauty will be preserved forever—when the parent dies, the child they leave behind will remind us of their own beauty. Shakespeare utilizes metaphors in his language to help promote this idea, for example the image of a bud, growing until it inevitably dies and diminishes. Unlike flowers, Shakespeare tells us here that we humans have the opportunity to keep this beauty everlasting. The very beginning of Shakespeare’s infamous series of sonnets, Sonnet 1 celebrates the beauty of procreation and offers a plea for humanity centered around our duty as humans to procreate and let our legacies live on, so our spirits can live vicariously through generations of our children.