Sonnet 64 of Spencer's Amoretti Essay

While the woman may outwardly profess her desire for her sexual partner, the dispassionate diction and detached tone within the sonnet suggest otherwise. For, in acknowledging her lover’s close proximity, she states that she is “urged”

This sonnet has very smooth and fluid feel to it, most of which can be attributed to the iambic pentameter and Elizabethan sonnet rhyme scheme as well as the numerous sound

Written in the form of a Shakespearean sonnet, one could hardly mistake it for anything so pleasant. Sonnets being traditionally used for beautiful, appealing topics, already there is contradiction between

Shakespeare follows the English style of sonnets, while Collins partially follows the Petrarchan style. Both sonnets include fourteen lines, a defining feature of the sonnet form. “My mistress’ eyes are…” consists of three quatrains that describes his argument on love cliches, and ends with a couplet, the turning point of English sonnets. The sonnet consists of ten syllables each line, following the rhythm of the iambic pentameter rule. Shakespeare’s sonnet follows the usual rhyme scheme of an English sonnet: abab cdcd efef gg. Collins attempts to stray from the general sonnet principles in contrast with Shakespeare. “Sonnet” loosely follows the Petrarchan style, as the lines are grouped into one octave and one sestet in structure. Collins’s “Sonnet” does not have a rhyme scheme, nor does the poem follow iambic pentameter. His sonnet does, however, present his turn in line 9, the beginning of the sestet. Collins begins poking fun at English sonnets in the octave, but then turns to joke at Petrarchan forms. Both sonnets have a lighthearted, humorous tone and parody classic styles of sonnets in different ways.

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.

Made up of three quatrains and couplet in iambic pentameter, Sonnet 1 contains the common thread of encouraging procreation, however each has a small topic shift that defines the tone of the quatrain. The first quatrain is an axiom, ending with the line “His tender heir might bear his own memory” signifying to the reader the speaker’s purpose behind their argument. By structuring the sonnet this way Shakespeare uses a structure that is similar to some persuasive arguments in real life. The rhyme scheme also helps to reflect this as Shakespeare uses the ABAB CDCD EFEF GG rhyme scheme to draw the reader’s attention to word that strengthen the speaker’s argument. An example of this is the rhyme between ‘’spring’’ and ‘’niggarding’’ in the third quatrain.

Poetry has always had a common theme where lovers are portrayed as goddess-like, based on their beauty and love. However, in William Shakespeare’s “Sonnet 130,” written as an English sonnet, the speaker has a different vision, as he realizes that his lover’s beauty cannot be compared to that of a goddess, nor can it be found in nature for she is just a typical human being. His love for her is eventually shown, but without the use of the cliché image of beauty. Shakespeare’s use of metaphors, contrast, language and structure demonstrates that love is complicated and that real beauty is unrealistic and impossible to live up to.

‘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.

A poem is a piece of writing that partakes of the nature of both speech and song that is nearly always rhythmical, usually metaphorical, and that often exhibits such formal elements as meter, rhyme, and stanza structure. In her poem, “Variations of the Word ‘“love”’,” Margaret Atwood introduces to her audience the word “love” from many different perspectives. Google defines “love” as “an intense feeling of deep affection”, or “having a deep feeling or sexual attachment to (someone).” But “love” is not something that can easily be described. Atwood goes on to present and portray the word through different illustrations, beginning with cliché examples and ending with her own personal scenarios. The author’s tone and metaphorical language effectively conveys her perspective of “love”.

Poets and authors alike evoke emotion and pictures from one single word. The imagery and thoughts put into the readers’ heads by these different writers are the base of one’s creativity and imagination while reading the author’s work of art. William Shakespeare is one of the most well-known poets of all time that is able to elicit these emotions from the reader to allow the reader to fully understand what Shakespeare is trying to accomplish with his poems. Shakespeare keeps his audience entertained with a whopping 154 sonnets, each having a different meaning and imagery associated with it. Sonnet 18, “[Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer’s Day]”, and Sonnet 55, “[Not Marble, nor the Gilded Monuments]”, are both one of Shakespeare’s most famous works. Shakespeare uses these sonnets to explore the powerful relationship between humanity, art, and time.

Many of the female Romantic poets, especially women like Robinson and Smith, utilised a style of sensibility writing that was honest and natural to combat patriarchal notions that female sensibility was “false” or over-emotional (Knowles 210). Indeed, we see in Sonnet XXV the presence of ‘natural sensibility’ in writing. The sonnet evokes images of nature and death in juxtaposition to highlight Sappho’s heightened passion. Sappho describes how “no spring appears, no summers bloom/No Sun-beams glitter” (XXV:10-11) to represent her sorrow. These natural allusions are also seen in an earlier line, where Sappho mentions “love’s raging fire” (XXV: 6). The language of sensibility is connected to nature, just like the presentation of Phaon in Sonnet XXI, outlining how sensibility is the language of poetics, not just female hysterics, as patriarchal ideas would suggest. Though on the surface, the language of sensibility is a poetic technique, Sappho’s use of this language in her narrative voice has a political message (Gamai 101). Language establishes not just individual identity, but a political identity in the sonnets. Particularly prevalent is the death imagery of this sonnet, emphasised in the line: “The mind’s dark winter of eternal gloom/Shews ‘midst the waste of a solitary urn” (XXV:

The poet begins with the question, "How do I love thee?"-and it is this which sets the mood of the sonnet, as she tries to quantify, and articulate the depth of her feelings towards her husband. She uses biblical references and religious similes throughout the verse, comparing and equating her love to be as unconditional and pure -as like unto God's. How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.

The poetic voice's mistress is of nature; no supernal gifts are hers. It is even strongly indicated that she is beneath the highest forms of beauty nature has to offer (her eyes are "nothing like the sun", "coral is far more red" than her lips, no "roses see I in her cheeks".) But this is to stray beyond the confines of the original subject, the rest of the verse argues, because the love the voice has for its lover is "as rare" as any other; beauty does not have to draw such clichéd parallels with nature to be thought of in the mind of a lover as surpassing everything around it. In reference to this repeated theme, in the introduction to the Penguin Classics printing of the Sonnets (though in reference specifically to sonnet 84), editor John Kerrigan concludes:

     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.