Sonnet 65 Sonnet 65 by Shakespeare argues that beauty and youth are illusions as they inevitably fade with the effects of time. The reader is pulled into the age old battle between humanity's desire for immortality and inevitable physical decay. Shakespeare suggests that it is only ideas captured by `black ink' (verses) that have any hope of transcending the test of time. The metaphoric loss of a legal battle by `beauty' against the `rage' of time in the first quatrain is intertwined with images of nature, to reinforce the idea that evading decay is hopeless. Time's metaphoric `battering' of the fortress of youth in the second quatrain warns that not even humanity's strongest attempts at self preservation can prevent mortality. The use …show more content…
His clever wordplay on `action', using the legal and physical sense of the word (Mahood 1968: 105), simultaneously supports the court battle metaphor and stresses the uselessness of the attempt to dissuade time. This clever use of metaphor and personification highlights the greater meaning, that our ploys to stay young are no more effective than a flower attempting to stop the advancement of time. The second quatrain holds an extended metaphor of a military battle between youth's strength and time's power of decay. Shakespeare uses `...summers hunny breath...' as a metaphor for youth and beauty. By giving `breath' to summer, it is personified into an image of a soft and lovely person- an epitome of youth. A breath is intermittent and only stays for a whim of time. This is important as it displays how the strength of youth is an illusion in the context of time. This holds particular relevance to the image of youth within a fortress trying to `...hold out' against a `siege' by the battering ram of an army (time) in lines five and six. The deliberate reference to such sturdy materials as `rocks impregnable' and `gates of steele', is used to reinforce the irony that they too will succumb to time. In essence showing that time, like an army, can crush love and youth as
In "Sonnet 73", the speaker uses a series of metaphors to characterize what he perceives to be the nature of his old age. This poem is not simply a procession of interchangeable metaphors; it is the story of the speaker slowly coming to grips with the finality of his age and his impermanence in time.
In the first three lines of his sonnet Shakespeare maintains the repletion of such words as “love” and “love”, “alters” and “alteration”, “remover” and “remove”. This way he underlies the consistency of feelings that prevail over other conditions in his poem. With each line Shakespeare’s thought is like bouncing between unusual changes to embrace the whole meaning of love that stays strong no matter what it has to sustain. In the next few lines Shakespeare is using metaphorical associations of love to give the reader the impression of majesty of love. “O no! It is an ever-fixed mark” (5), in this essence the meaning of mark pertains to sea-mark, which is a lighthouse, “That looks on tempests and is never shaken;” (6). The author is giving love metaphorical meaning of strength which is like a lighthouse never shaken with tempests. The next metaphorical close: “It is the star to every wandering bark,” (7), in
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.
In modern times, youth and beauty is an image seen everywhere. For example, a Versace billboard, magazine ad, TV commercial, all of which displays images of beautiful people. But what happens when this beauty fades? Shakespeare in his 12th sonnet talks about his experience and fading beauty. The purpose of this poem is to encourage a young man to not lose his beauty to the ravages of time. In order to do this, one must reproduce so beauty will live.
The theme, in Sonnet 73, is the poet's aging. Each quatrain develops an image of lateness, of approaching extinction - of a season, of a day, and of a fire, but they also apply to a life (Abrams et al. 867). The poet compares his age to three images through the quatrains: autumn, the dying of the year (first quatrain); the dying of the fire (third quatrain). The first line draws a picture of himself, "in me," and in a certain time, "That time of year," of his life (surely, he is old now). We can see that the
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.
the first of the two lines he uses the word ‘mark’ which means buoy to
In sonnet 95, the speaker depicts a paternal feeling while speaking to the addressee, where indeed the poet reminds his audience about way appearance can be so deceiving. The young man is relying on his good appearance to veil his sexual immorality. Being that he is handsome and attractive, people are reluctant to disapprove his behavior. In the first quadrant, the poet employs different stylistic devices, which include simile, as the young man is likened to a fragrant rose, and on the other hand, he is compared to a destructive worm, but all his dark side of life is hidden under his good looking and charming nature. What is important about this poem is the manner in which the speaker reminds the young man about his bad behavior and draws examples that makes him feel sorry about what he does behind his good-looking nature. By the use of diction, imagery, diction, images, metaphors and other figures of speech, such as tone of voice, allusions, syntax and structure of the speech, the speaker warns the young man against his sexual immorality, and reminds him that there are detrimental risks associated with his behavior if he does not change.
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
An analysis of Pablo Neruda’s “Sonnet XVII,” from the book 100 Love Sonnets: Cien sonetos de amor, reveals the emotions of the experience of eternal, unconditional love. Neruda portrays this in his words by using imagery and metaphors to describe love in relation to beauty and darkness. The poem also depicts the intimacy between two people. I believe the intent of the poem is to show that true love for another abolishes all logic, leaving one completely exposed, captivated, and ultimately isolated.
The majority of Elizabethan sonnets reflect two major themes: time and love. William Shakespeare, too, followed this convention, producing 154 sonnets, many of which deal with the usual theme of love. Because the concept of love is in itself so immense, Shakespeare found several ways to capture the essence of his passion. Therefore, in his poetry he explored various methods and used them to describe the emotions associated with his love for a mysterious "dark lady." These various ideas and views resulted in a series of sonnets that vibrantly depicts his feelings of true, undying love for his lady. Instead of making the topic less interesting, as some might expect, Shakespeare's myriad approaches
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.
Edmund Spenser’s Sonnet 67 is one of 85 sonnets from Amoretti which was written about his courtship of Elizabeth Boyle. Spenser and Boyle were married in 1594. Sonnet 67 uses a hunting themed metaphor common in 16th century England comparing the woman to a deer and the man to a huntsman in pursuit. Sonnet 67 appears to have been inspired by an earlier work by Petrarch, Rima 190, but with a different ending. In this paper we will take an in depth look at this work, also commonly referred to as “ Lyke as a Huntsman”.
During the Renaissance period, most poets were writing love poems about their lovers/mistresses. The poets of this time often compared love to high, unrealistic, and unattainable beauty. Shakespeare, in his sonnet 18, continues the tradition of his time by comparing the speakers' love/mistress to the summer time of the year. It is during this time of the year that the flowers and the nature that surround them are at there peak for beauty. The theme of the poem is to show the speakers true interpretation of beauty. Beauties worst enemy is time and although beauty might fade it can still live on through a person's memory or words of a poem. The speaker realizes that beauty, like the subject of the poem, will remain perfect not in the
The poem opens by stating that his lover must behold him at the time of life corresponding to late autumn, when almost no leaves remain on the trees and the birds have flown south. The poet’s calling attention to his old age might seem incongruous, since many lovers might try to hide the fact from their companions. Yet, in this relationship, William Shakespeare not only is being forthright but also seems to be seeking the sympathy of his dear friend. (Lord 3569)