Once upon a time there was an English writer from the 1600s who wrote a collection of 154 poems called Shakespeare’s Sonnets. The poems reflect on love, time, beauty, and death. Throughout the sonnets, many different types of love can be deciphered. The Various ways to love can be seen in William Shakespeare’s poems, as proven by lust in “Sonnet 129,” the love of appearances in “Sonnet 130,” true love in “Sonnet 116,” and the elements of nature in contrast to love in “Sonnet 18,” proving that there can be many different aspects of love and how it is perceived.
The first poem, “Sonnet 129,” shows how one way that love can be portrayed is through lust. It describes how one is controlled by the impulses, experiences the joy, and is then mortified by the deed. Lust is irresistible and overwhelming and can cause emotions such as longing, blissful fulfillment, and unavoidable guilt, as described by Shakespeare in “Sonnet 129” (Fleischmann 115). Allowing physical desire to overpower reason is the root of sin that Shakespeare addresses in the sonnet. Even though the sonnet’s speaker knows that he should withstand the temptation, it is shown that resisting the urges may be all but impossible (Fleischmann 116). The reader can infer that lust is a desire experienced around the world, but not many people have the will to prevail over it: “Sonnet 129 depicts lust as a universal experience ‘the world knows well’ (11), even as only a few are able to overcome its temptations and resist its tumultuous highs and lows” (Fleischmann 116). This shows how widespread attraction of lust is. In addition to lust being irrepressible, once the act is fulfilled, it is almost always regretted: “As Shakespeare wrote, the world well knows that sexual intercourse without love is often a grave disappointment and can lead to torment in a wide variety of forms. Unfortunately, many people have to learn this truth by bitter experience” (Delaney 3). The only way that a person realizes how unpleasant lust is, is through experiencing it. The speaker makes a realization at the end of the poem that lust is only comprehended by looking at all its facets. He suggests that lust offers heaven while searching for it, but lust offers hell when it is
Love can be a tricky thing. Love can be the begging to something new, something beautiful. While, Love can also be a dangerous and deserving thing. Love is a feeling many will feel whether for someone or something. Yet, loving someone can truly show not only who someone is as a person but, can show things about yourself you never knew. Thing you wish you never knew. Shakespeare’s “Sonnet 137” shows the dirt and ugly and immoral side your heart can obtain when love is blinding you.
Shakespeare’s sonnet 130, “My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun” and Pablo Neruda’s “My ugly love” are popularly known to describe beauty in a way hardly anyone would write: through the truth. It’s a common fact that modern lovers and poets speak or write of their beloved with what they and the audience would like to hear, with kind and breathtaking words and verses. Yet, Shakespeare and Neruda, honest men as they both were, chose to write about what love truly is, it matters most what’s on the inside rather than the outside. The theme of true beauty and love are found through Shakespeare and Neruda’s uses of imagery, structure, and tone.
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.
In William Shakespeare’s Sonnet 137 or “Thou blind fool, Love, what dost thou to mine eyes” the speaker appears to be blaming love and himself for being mislead about a woman. In the first quatrain the speaker is addressing “Love” as if it were a physical being when the speaker describes it to be a “blind fool” and questions what Love has done to his eyes (Lines 1-2). It can be interpreted that the “Love” is referring to Cupid as the one who is affecting the speaker’s eyesight. The speaker then goes on to explain that his eyes “know what beauty is” yet it mistakes the worst for the best (Lines 3-4). When the speaker mentions that his eyes can recognize beauty that can infer that the speaker is referring to a woman and that his eyes have
William Shakespeare’s “Sonnet 116” and Edna St. Vincent Millay’s “Love Is Not All” both attempt to define love, by telling what love is and what it is not. Shakespeare’s sonnet praises love and speaks of love in its most ideal form, while Millay’s poem begins by giving the impression that the speaker feels that love is not all, but during the unfolding of the poem we find the ironic truth that love is all. Shakespeare, on the other hand, depicts love as perfect and necessary from the beginning to the end of his poem. Although these two authors have taken two completely different approaches, both have worked to show the importance of love and to define it. However, Shakespeare is most confident of his definition of love, while Millay seems
The ideas of love being expressed in Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing and Sonnet 130 are genuinely contrasting. In Much Ado About Nothing, one of the many focal points are Beatrice and Benedick’s foolish relationship, also the most captivating, whereas in Sonnet 130, Shakespeare is talking about the misrepresentation of the “Dark Lady”, who he refers to as his mistress. Regardless of a person’s flaws disfigurements, the stress they cause, and the bickering that occurs, love can withstand time, and under the circumstances love doesn’t change for anyone, that it does not substitute itself when it finds differences in the loved one.
“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.
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.
Inner beauty is a concept that is thought to have been identified in modern times because of racial,ethnic, and religious segregation in the past centuries. However, very few in the undeveloped world came to realization that inner beauty is just as valuable as external attraction/beauty. In sonnet 130, William Shakespeare displays the true meaning of attraction for ones lover through imagery and figurative language. Shakespeare begins the sonnet with a simile “My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun;”(130.1).
The sonnet sequences of Shakespeare and Wroth present two variant perspectives of falling in love, each illustrated as affection through their poetics. Though they lean on each other, Shakespeare’s features a more masculine representation of desire and Wroth’s, a more feminine. To generalize their differences: how Shakespeare grounds his sonnets—with more physicality—Wroth matches with an intangible aspect; where he harshens, she remains reserved; where he personalizes, she makes general. What’s altogether valuable to their comparison is the idea that the addressee of each of the series is for the most part a male figure, as opposed to the typical fashion of having a woman as a subject. Their treatment of these subjects, too, defines their
Love in its purest form is the most unsurpassable of all emotions, requiring intense commitment, while simultaneously providing incomparable bliss. However, often the intense desire for these feelings produces a new emotion, lust, with a craving that gives priority to obtaining an objectified person, as opposed to a very real human. Lust can be further practically defined as the inability to place selfless love on a higher pedestal than selfish desire. Shakespeare explores these conflicting definitions of lust in his 129th sonnet, condemning his animalistic variations of lust that coexist with his desire for a genuine state of love. As opposed to following the
“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.
Even in the Elizabethan era, the concept of love was difficult to grasp. During that era, many people married young since they had short lifespans. Consequently, people quickly became infatuated with one another, such as from a glance or simple gesture. In many Shakespearean plays, the recurring theme is that love is tragic and brings only pain. However, in Twelfth Night, The Merchant of Venice, and “Sonnet XX”, love does not evoke only one emotion, but rather a range of emotions, from bliss to bittersweet.
In his time, William Shakespeare, wrote 154 sonnets that chronicled, what most believe, to be his interaction with two people for whom he wrote sonnets in exchange for money, or perhaps for a loved one. The first sections of sonnets are believed to be written to the Earl of Southampton, Henry Wriothesley. The other half is believed to be written for a mysterious woman, known as “The Dark Lady”. These sonnets talk about many things: beauty, forgiveness, brevity of life, etc, in order to express and show his love and desire for his beloved, to whom these sonnets are addressed to. Through his use of dramatic imagery, allusions, and antithesis Shakespeare’s sonnet 109 suggests that despite unfaithfulness, love is a unifying bond that can never truly be broken.
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.