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The Sonnet Sequences Of Shakespeare And Wroth

Decent Essays
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…show more content…
Nothing’s lost in this type of qualification, and what’s gained is a new lens through which to interpret the work in question. In evaluation of the sequences of both Shakespeare and Wroth, they seem to prove the assertion, standing against each other while expressing the same kind of subject with selfsame purpose. Shakespeare’s Sonnet 15 perhaps demonstrates the farthest points to which masculine love can be taken within an individual poem, in regards to its power of objectification. The entire structure of his conceit revolves around the interplay between a sort of reasoning of reproduction and double entendre imagery as a description of the male orgasm, crudely but with nuance pieced together. He begins with a recollection of past experience, considering “every thing that grows,” on which he continues, “holds in perfection but a little moment,” all of this serving as the poem’s first direct ties between multiplication and actual sex. What finishes the quatrain these start is an attempt to describe both activities as destined, “whereon the stars in secret influence comment,” that humanity itself has no control over what’s felt and done between lovers. And continuing the theme, Shakespeare stirs around the idea that humanity does in fact try to suppress lovers from each other when he
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