The William Shakespeare

Shakespeare and Love: Optional Essay Using A Midsummer Night’s Dream and “Sonnet 18,” write an expository essay that analyzes Shakespeare’s message about love. Goal: You will be able to demonstrate expository writing skills and use standard English conventions. Steps: ● Write thesis statement ● Select evidence ● Plan your essay ● Write it ● Edit and revise ● When you are done, submit as a PDF to the assignment called “Optional Essay to Improve Grades” Evidence Bank: From AMND “The course of true love never did run smooth” (I.i.138)

Shakespeare examines love in two different ways in Sonnets 116 and 130. In the first, love is treated in its most ideal form as an uncompromising force (indeed, as the greatest force in the universe); in the latter sonnet, Shakespeare treats love from a more practical aspect: it is viewed simply and realistically without ornament. Yet both sonnets are justifiable in and of themselves, for neither misrepresents love or speaks of it slightingly. Indeed, Shakespeare illustrates two qualities of love in the two sonnets: its potential and its objectivity. This paper will compare and contrast the two sonnets by Shakespeare and show how they represent two different attitudes to love.

Shakespeare expresses his love for his mistress through metaphors, typical of sonnets about love. However, those comparisons describe his poor mistress in unpleasant ways, in distinct to typical love sonnets. Poets usually describe the beauty of their lover through embellished comparisons and through the usage of romantic language. Shakespeare pokes fun at the fact that these comparisons are too

Within sonnet 116, Shakespeare personifies the abstract noun of love when he states ‘Whose worth’s unknown’. Through personifying his ideology of true love, it makes it increasingly

Sonnets 127-154 are addressed to the “dark lady” (hereafter the mistress). Shakespeare’s relations to his mistress vacillate; sometimes sanguine, tender, teasing, or bitterly anger; yet it is a simpler relation than that

Throughout this sonnet, he uses a dark type of humor to shine a light on the reality of what having homosexual desires in the 16th century was really like. Shakespeare uses gay semiotics and a persuasive tone to express his sexual desire and real world attachment to Henry Wriothesley. The gay semiotics in Sonnet 135 are generally portrayed through the word “will”

Christopher Marlowe or De vere could have been the author of Shakespeare's carrier. There is a controversy over the existence of William Shakespeare. In the article , “Was William shakespeare just a pseudonym”. Henry James once stated “I am… haunted by the conviction that the divine William is the biggest and most successful fraud ever practice on a patient world.”. There is two sides of the controversy that William was not what he said he was. In conclusion I agree with the Oxfordians that Shakespeare was just an actor not a poet and playwright.

Is true love an unattainable ideal? Do we all have a soul mate? Is love just an exchange of lies for the purpose of flattery? These questions, and countless others, regarding love have been pondered by philosophers and pop music stars alike for hundreds of years. William Shakespeare examines these questions from two vantage points in “Sonnet 116” and “Sonnet 138.” Firstly, in “Sonnet 116”, Shakespeare analyzes love in a rhetorical manner, meaning that he is not discussing a specific relationship of his, but theorizing on the concept of love as a whole, in abstract terms. Conversely, in “Sonnet 138”, Shakespeare analyzes love in a specific manner. He looks inward to inspect a relationship between him and a woman, also known as The Dark Lady, and paints a much different picture of love than in “Sonnet 116”, in specific terms. In William Shakespeare’s “Sonnet 116” and “Sonnet 138”, Shakespeare analyzes love in abstract and specific terms; concluding that abstract love relies on affection, does not change or age, and is built upon a solid foundation of truth, while specific love, on the other hand, relies on lust, actively ignores change and aging, and revolves around deception. These two sonnets paint entirely adverse portraits of love in order to emphasize the dichotomy between the poet’s expectations of love, and the reality which does not live up to the poet’s expectations.

“Shakespeare’s parents were probably illiterate, and his children almost certainly were” (History.com Staff). William Shakespeare was a poet, dramatist, and playwright, and many regard him as the single greatest English author. Shakespeare, one of the most celebrated writers in human history, despite simple roots, was able to create masterpieces which are still read, enjoyed, and studied widely to this day.

Most ancient Romans used superstitions as a way to explain nature as they were not enlightened enough. However, the rich class believed in less superstitions as they were enlightened more though there were superstitions that they still believed in. Romans sourced their beliefs in superstitions from the Etruscans. The Romans referred to the Etruscan books of divination, which included writings of what the gods meant through the signs and also writings of telling the future. The Etruscans could

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

After studying the sonnet of Shakespeare, I think if the emotion between two men is only called male friendship, Shakespeare‟s sonnets assert too much love to be addressed to a man. It seems ridiculous that Shakespeare, a moral man addressed abundant affectionate sonnets to men. His poems use language of love: “lord of love”, “eternal love”, “my lovely boy”, “my friend and I are one”, “thou mine, I thine”. Those languages sometimes can be regarded as non-sexual friendship, in Shakespeare‟s work; they are certainly the language of sexual love. Many of the sonnets are saturated in the language of longing and desire; they showed some sorrow about the lacking of the male friend‟s “sweet love”. There are many explicit and implicit clues in the

William Shakespeare is recognized for being one of greatest poets of all time. His works are still popular to this day. Many of his works included extended metaphors and similes with rhetorical language and were rooted in the nature of love. Two of his poems that are rather alike, but also very contrastive are “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?” and “My mistresses’ eyes are nothing like the sun.” They both contain a core theme of love or anti-love in some aspects. While these two poems are built around the same type of subject, their interpretations come across in separate ways. In contrast to Shakespeare’s “Sonnet 18” which is a serious love poem that contains imagery and metaphors, Shakespeare’s “Sonnet 130” is more negative and humorous but contains imagery and similes.

In Shakespeare’s Sonnets, the pain experienced emotionally and physically contributes to the realistic nature of his words. Specifically addressing the Dark Lady, the speaker expresses a more mature love unlike the relationship between him and the young man. Readers are warned about the dangers of lust in the love triangle, but the speaker is content with the Dark Lady’s affairs rather than the young man’s. In Sonnet 138, the speaker says, “On both sides thus is simple truth suppressed/But wherefore say not I that I am old?/Oh love’s best habit is in seeming trust” (8-10). In their relationship, love is therefore a mutual understanding of deception. The Dark Lady ignores that he is old and considers him to be young and the speaker ignores that she is cheating on him by not bringing up her faithfulness. What ties these two characters together is

Shakespeare, who wrote the sonnets in 1609, expresses his own feelings through his greatest work of literature. The theme of love in the poems reflect thoughts from the Renaissance period. Love is one of many components of Shakespeare’s life shown in the sonnets. Love can be defined in many ways other than a strong affection for a lover. In Shakespeare’s sonnets, the concept of love can be seen through many uncommon means such as the love of life before death in “Sonnet 73,” love in marriage in “Sonnet 116,” love through sexual desire in “Sonnet 129,” and love through nature in “Sonnet 130,” proving that love can be expressed through many different feelings and emotions.