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Sonnet 18 vs. Sonnet 75 Essay

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The power of immortalizing literature is in the hands of the reader.

Yosfan

The power of immortalizing literature is in the hands of the reader.

One of the things that is on people minds is immortality. What will happen to them when they die but more importantly how and will they be remembered. Nature portrays immortality with the cycle of life. Everything has a beginning middle and an end and then starts all over again like the sun that will rise tomorrow or the tie that keeps occurring. Literature, according to some poets, possesses the same characteristic as nature. These poets claim that as long as people write poems and …show more content…

Sonnet 75 as well as sonnet 18 displays a dialogue that discusses the issue of immortality. While sonnet 18 describes the persona's internal debate on how is the best way to immortalize his beautiful lover, sonnet 75 by Spenser, reproduces an internal debate, conversation, between the persona and his lady. The dialog in sonnet 75 is no more than a literary convention, an artifice that permits the poet a clever exposition of the central subject of the sonnet; immortality through the readers/ auditors. By convincing the lady in the sonnet of the personas ability to create immortality with his verse, the poet actually convey a message of his believes to the readers/ auditors. The message is that he can only write "[his] verse" (l.11), "but came the waves and washed it away" (l.4) , meaning immortality is in the hands of the readers "but you shall live by fame" (l.10).Shakespeare's sonnet 18 uses a grammatical style that highlights the poems first line "Shall I compare thee to a summer's day," (1) which describes the poet's external debate on how is the best way to immortalize his beautiful lover. Both personas uses literary toll a dialog. Through the dialog they share their thoughts and feelings with the readers, engage and attract them, and portray the decision process. They do so with a purpose in mind; to make the

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