William Shakespeare 's Poetry Of Sonnets

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.

“Sonnet 18" by William Shakespeare it may be the best well-known of all sonnets. In "Sonnet 18", William Shakespeare offers a unique perspective on the comparisons that were popular in the sonnet times. "Sonnet 18" is committed to admire a friend or lover, usually known as the "fair youth." The sonnet itself guarantees that this person beauty will have remained sustained; even through death; the lines of verse will continue to be read by future generations; when a speaker, poet, and an admirer are no more, maintaining the correct illustration alive through the influence of poetry. This essay will analyze "Sonnet 18" by William Shakespeare and deliberate how he used literary elements in establishing this short poem.

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.

Two hundred years had passed between the sonnets of Petrarch and the reign of Queen Elizabeth. As a form and structure for poetic life, the sonnet had grown hard. Fourteen lines of rhymed iambic pentameter remained pregnant with possibilities and vitality, but must the sense turn after the octave and resolve in the sestet? Love remained in some ways inexpressible without this basic verse form, but something wasn’t right. Too many rose red lips and too much snow white skin belonging to unattainable lovers did not communicate the prevailing amorous imagination. The conventions were a little too conventional. The metaphors were gone somewhat stale.

Known as the leader in classical poetry and drama, English writer William Shakespeare, captures the passion and emotions that the romance and depths of the human heart experiences in life. This is especially shown in his vast collection of sonnets which exemplified the “carpe diem” ideology of the period, and the love that one can have for another. Two of the most famous of Shakespeare’s works, Sonnet 55 [Not Marble, nor the gilded monuments] and sonnet 116 [Let me not to the marriage of true minds], are no exception to this theme in poetry. Both of these sonnets exemplify the love that the narrator has for a mistress in his life, and how he defines his love for them. Throughout both poems, Shakespeare conveys his purpose through the

Sonnets 5 and 6 from Shakespeare’s Sonnets, a collection of sonnets written by William Shakespeare, represent themes such as procreation, the passage of time, beauty, love and mortality. Shakespeare’s sophisticated use of rhetorical methods, persuasive techniques, metaphors, repetition, structural framing, combined with his aesthetic values create a parallel in these two sonnets. In both sonnets, he tries to convince the handsome young man to marry and beget children so that the youth 's incredible beauty will not die when the youth dies. While both sonnets share similar themes, metaphors, and structures, sonnet 6 is a continuation of sonnet 5, expanding on the idea of the preservation of beauty in a more dramatic and critical tone.

Both of these Petrarchan sonnets have a loose iambic pentameter, with a fairly simple and regular rhyme scheme, which appears at first to be a structure that constructs freedom and space. However, the fact that they have a form of structure at all, and are not merely blank verse, hints at a sense of cyclic monotony and, therefore, entrapment. Prefatory Sonnet is more purposefully structured than Lines Composed Upon Westminster Bridge; line thirteen (“who have felt the weight of too much liberty”) is written in contrasting trochaic meter, in turn emphasising the false perception of space created by people who think themselves surrounded by it. Each poem is monosyllabic in several places, such as the lines: “nuns fret not”, “should find short solace there, as I have found”, “earth has not any thing to shew more fair” and “at his own sweet will”. This emphasises polysyllabic words, like “narrow”, “prison”, “sundry”, “scanty”, “touching”, “garment” “solace” and “never”, which all highlight the sense of proximity and lacking that both poems inconspicuously convey. Using repetitive capital letters where not needed, Wordsworth draws attention towards words such as “cells”, “wheel”, and “city”; these industrially-associated (man-made) nouns refer to the heavy feeling of congestion that industrial places evoke. The capital letters also create a barrier in the structure of the poems, which adds to the cyclic limitations of space that they suggest. Jonathan M. Hess also argues that

The sonnets of Shakespeare often explore the deeper musings of the male narrator as he catalogues his continuous waxing on intrapersonal and interpersonal matters. Sonnet 80 does this beautifully as it discusses the narrator’s deepest fear that, “my [the narrator’s] love was my dismay.” The profoundly beautiful couplet perfectly accompanies the prior three quatrains, and a sailing metaphor is used throughout. The narrator, whom is addressing the young man, brings up his biggest quandary (the other “spirit”) as he attempts to express himself to the young man. The entire sonnet is supported by the idea of sailing and boats, and, yet, the narrator and reader both know that he (the narrator) will inevitably encounter a shipwreck.

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.

Some questions about the Sonnets which have been the subject of no little controversy the only one that seems to claim notice here is the identity of the "rival poet" of Sonnets 79-86. Spenser, Marlowe, Drayton, Nash, Daniel, and others have been suggested by some critics, and Mr. Lee adds Barnabe Barnes, "a poetic panegyrist of Southampton and a prolific sonneteer, who was deemed by contemporary critics certain to prove a great poet." On the whole, Chapman, the person Professor Minto was the first to suggest, and the person Dowden, Furnivall, and many others have endorsed, is most likely to have been the poet that Shakespeare had had in mind. Mr. Lee, having dated the Sonnets in 1592 and 1593, naturally objects that Chapman had produced no

Shakespeare’s ninety-first sonnet continues to address the young man to whom he has been writing the procreation sonnets. The theme of this sonnet is the incomparable value of the young man’s love. For Shakespeare, the pleasure of the young man’s love is greater than any other pleasure. His rejection of worldly pleasures for the greater joy of love also appears to highlight a distinction Shakespeare wants to make between true wealth and poverty. In doing so, he insinuates a social criticism about the notion of what is truly valuable in this world. Shakespeare emphasizes these points through the structure of the poem, which employs repetition and chiasmus, and through diction.

     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.

From the public life of humanist while at court to now private. The Petrarchan sonnet poetry with lines with rhyme schemes made up of eight lines of octave and sestet of six lines. Petrarch poetry deals with the rejection of unrequited love. The Petrarchan sonnets, flows by respond to each other with sexual frustration due to rejection. Petrarch elaborates figures of speech to express his emotions. Phillip Sidney is a noble who uses poetry for personal use. Sidney uses personae to establish poetry can teach a human mind how to act. We are in a period where everything happens in one room. Sidney wants to show poetry is art and life. Sidney shows that by him writing poetry he is learning how to act. Sidney poetry writes against people that thought poetry was a waste of time and is defining poetry as the first source of dispelling ignorance of the mind.

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