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William Shakespeare 's Sonnet 60

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In Sonnet 60, (“Like as the waves make towards the pebbl’d shore”), William Shakespeare exemplifies the speaker 's interpretation of time through the personification of nature. This piece follows the english (Shakespearean) sonnet model, incorporating a total of fourteen lines, divided into three quatrains composed of four lines each, followed by a concluding couplet of two lines. The focal point of a Shakespearean sonnet is the iambic pentameter meter. Iambic pentameter as defined by Oxford English Dictionary is a “line of verse with five metrical feet, each consisting of one short (or unstressed) syllable followed by one long (or stressed) syllable”.
The first quatrain sets up the poets comparison of “waves” (1) as they approach a “pebbl’d shore” (1) to the concept of minutes (1) as time comes to a conclusion. The aforementioned simile presented notably establishes the dark tone embodied in the remainder of the first quatrain. The following half of the opening quatrain attempts to interpret time as an everlasting cycle, lacking repetition. Just as the waves crashing onto the shores, time is constantly moving forward. Time as understood by the speaker resembles the waves crashing and finally concluding at a shore. The occurrence of the wave crashing is impossible to recur as is the reliving of a moment in time. The first quatrain finally comes to a closure through the “toil” (4) of time moving forward. This subtle representation of time moving forward sets the tone for the

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