Sonnet Lx - Analysis

     Frost?s poem delves deeper into the being and essence of life with his second set of lines. The first line states, ?Her early leaf?s a flower.? After the budding and sprouting, which is the birth of nature, is growth into a flower. This is the moment where noon turns to evening, where childhood turns into maturity, and where spring turns into summer. At this very moment is the ripe and prime age of things. The young flower stands straight up and basks in the sun, the now mature teenager runs playfully in the light, and the day and sunlight peak before descending ever so quickly into dusk. The second line of the second set states, ?But only so an hour,? which makes clear that yet again time is passing by and that a beginning will inevitably have an end.

The second stanza tells about a “glorious lamp of heaven”, the sun, running a race from sunup to sundown (Herrick 385). In the third stanza it talks about when people are youthful they think they have all the time to accomplish their goals but “times still succeed the former”, which simply means time

“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.

“Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?” (“Sonnet 18”) is one of Shakespeare’s most famous poems. It is the model English, or Shakespearean sonnet: it contains three quatrains and a finishing couplet.. The poem follows the traditional English sonnet form by having the octet introduce an idea or set up the poem, and the sestet beginning with a volta, or turn in perspective. In the octet of Sonnet 18, Shakespeare poses the question “Shall I compare the to a summer’s day” and basically begins to describe all the bad qualities of summer. He says it’s too windy, too short, too hot, and too cloudy. Eventually fall is going to come and take away all the beauty because of the changes nature brings. In the sestet, however, his tone changes as he begins to talk about his beloved’s “eternal summer” (Shakespeare line 9). This is where the turn takes place in the poem. Unlike the summer, their beauty will never fade. Not even death can stop their beauty for, according to Shakespeare, as long as people can read this poem, his lover’s beauty will continue to live. Shakespeare believes that his art is more powerful than any season and that in it beauty can be permanent.

In the beginning of the poem we see the line “Time that is moved by little fidget wheels” conveying the meaning he was taken before his time. This refers to the chronological and systematic time of humanity in which is measured by minutes and hours, shown on clocks that are symbolised by bells. This concept of time is far more powerful with the use of personification as emphasised by the capitalisation.

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 the first quatrain, Shakespeare begins his meditation on the process of decay. He begins the poem with "I", which signals that Shakespeare will later give his own experience and account. The first object presented in this sonnet is a clock, which is to set the mood of the poem.

The ex-lover thinks of his thankfulness to have escaped the past misfortune of the woman and the future of misery that she will endure. The lover also indicates that “Time holds great surprises” (6) meaning that time has brought three children that have taken over, taking the living out of her life, which the lover has so ironically escaped some time ago. Time has resulted in the mother living for the children but not for her own self, resulting in her identity never being recreated. In the sestet, time is shown through “birthdays” (10) and, “watching them grow” (11). This is the first reference of time made in the present and the future tense. It is the first positive point in reference to time rather then the conversation of escape and regret of the past. It shows the attempt of the mother’s display of false happiness in present time as she sits in the park. She struggles to reassure herself, while trying to convince the lover that her future will be content, ideally giving herself a false identity. Throughout the poem the use of time as a symbol of identity obliteration promotes the high expected potential of mothers, set by society.

The title of the poem is “Evening Hawk” and the word evening implies the end- a day coming to a close. But, the day is transformed into all of time through other figurative language in the poem. Beginning in stanza one, Warren depicts the “sunset build[ing]” as “The last tumultuous avalanche of light” breaks through the pines (Warren 2, 4-5). Like evening, sunset implies the end of a day as the light leaves the earth and darkness encloses. However, as the “sunset builds”, light that breaks through the trees is the “last” bit of light before the hawk comes. The word “last” suggests there is no more to come- ever. Not only is it the last ray of light, it is a “tumultuous avalanche of light” creating the image of a rough mountain in the mind of the reader. This mountain reveals how the author recognizes that he has reached the climax of his life and is on a quick downward fall toward death- the end of time is near. Furthermore, a “tumultuous avalanche” insinuates urgency in the tone of the author revealing how he is trying to warn readers that the end is closer than previously thought. In stanza two, Warren continues to indicate the end is approached through the “crashless fall of stalks of Time” as the hawk “Scythes down another day” (Warren 9, 7). Literally, time is compared to stalks of grain in a field and as they fall there are not as many

Like the season of Fall, the twilight of a day is a metaphor for the passing of time. Each new day can be seen as a life itself. Each morning and afternoon -- when the day is young -- is a life full of possibilities and opportunities. Then twilight approaches, and the day is done, only to be followed by sleep -- or as Shakespeare calls it, "Death's second self".

the first of the two lines he uses the word ‘mark’ which means buoy to

The next section runs from lines 21 to 32, here the speaker moves away from the hypothetical to reality but retains the melodramatic language used in the previous section to sustain the tenacity of his points. Time here is portrayed as chasing the speaker as opposed to being something the speaker is in control of as in the end of the last section. This is done using the image of a ‘winged chariot’ (l.22), this has classical associations with Greek mythology which relates to his form of argument. The meter of the poem is restrictively regular, this structure emphasises the idea that time is constantly progressing; reflecting the speaker’s argument.

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.

Donne even goes so far as to command God to destroy the person he has

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.