Shakespeares Sonnets
Arian Brethorst
11/20/12
Research Paper
Shakespeare and His Sonnets
When people evaluate Shakespeare, they more often than not recall his plays and writings; what people don't ordinarily ponder on is that he was also famous for the sonnets that he had written. He is renowned for his outstanding plays, which have left a great trace in the course of literature and culture, and also for the invention of the new form of the verse – a sonnet. No one truly knows if his sonnets were devoted to a real person or just about his personal feelings within. The majority of his sonnets were about love and the self discoveries of everyday life. In Shakespeare’s “Sonnet 130”, Shakespeare describes a woman that he once loved. The sonnet clearly mocks the typical clichés, in which women’s eyes were compared to; the sun, stars, and other beautiful things. Although he is obviously trying to poke fun at the clichés, he refuses to use typical descriptions. The main idea of the sonnet is to express the feelings towards a woman describing her appearance in a poetic way. But here the reader can be misled by some kind of paradox: the thing is that the majority of poets tend to impute the supernatural beauty to their potential addressee if she or he is regarded as a beloved. But in this very work we do not observe anything unearthly described – quite a contrary, the lyrical hero gives a very down-to-earth description of his lover: he accepts that her beauty is not as vivid as the beauty of nature. Thus, from the first lines it is not even clear that the lyrical hero speaks about a beloved person and it is emphasized by such stylistic devices as a simple simile “My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun” (1a), disguised similes “Coral is far more red than her lips’ red”, “If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun”, “If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head” (1a), etc., a metaphor “I have seen roses damask’d, red and white, / But no such roses see I on her cheeks”.
11/20/12
Research Paper
Shakespeare and His Sonnets
When people evaluate Shakespeare, they more often than not recall his plays and writings; what people don't ordinarily ponder on is that he was also famous for the sonnets that he had written. He is renowned for his outstanding plays, which have left a great trace in the course of literature and culture, and also for the invention of the new form of the verse – a sonnet. No one truly knows if his sonnets were devoted to a real person or just about his personal feelings within. The majority of his sonnets were about love and the self discoveries of everyday life. In Shakespeare’s “Sonnet 130”, Shakespeare describes a woman that he once loved. The sonnet clearly mocks the typical clichés, in which women’s eyes were compared to; the sun, stars, and other beautiful things. Although he is obviously trying to poke fun at the clichés, he refuses to use typical descriptions. The main idea of the sonnet is to express the feelings towards a woman describing her appearance in a poetic way. But here the reader can be misled by some kind of paradox: the thing is that the majority of poets tend to impute the supernatural beauty to their potential addressee if she or he is regarded as a beloved. But in this very work we do not observe anything unearthly described – quite a contrary, the lyrical hero gives a very down-to-earth description of his lover: he accepts that her beauty is not as vivid as the beauty of nature. Thus, from the first lines it is not even clear that the lyrical hero speaks about a beloved person and it is emphasized by such stylistic devices as a simple simile “My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun” (1a), disguised similes “Coral is far more red than her lips’ red”, “If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun”, “If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head” (1a), etc., a metaphor “I have seen roses damask’d, red and white, / But no such roses see I on her cheeks”.