Reflection #1
In Shakespeare’s sonnet, “Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer’s Day,” Shakespeare compares a warm summer’s day to the woman he loves. In the beginning two lines of the poem, he makes his first comparison saying “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day? Thou art more lovely and more temperate,” meaning Shakespeare is not sure if he should compare the woman he loves to a summer’s day because she is more lovely and more constant. He explains in the next two lines about how summer has flaws like the rough winds shake the beloved buds of may and that summer is to short, and he makes the point that the woman should not be compared to a summer’s day because in his eyes, she has no flaws. After, Shakespeare also explains how everything beautiful will loose beauty eventually due to nature’s course. In the two lines following to those above, he explains how her beauty and youth will never fade because he will always find her beautiful, no matter what effects nature’s course has on her. Showing his love for this woman, Shakespeare elaborates in his poem that Death will never claim her for ‘his’ own because she will always be his. Notice how Shakespeare makes death look like another person and how he explains how no one else could ever have her. That’s a perfect example of his unique figurative language. With the final couplet, “So as long as men can breathe and eyes can see, So long lives this and gives life to thee,” Shakespeare shows his true affection and his declaration of love for the woman he loves. It changes the pace of the poem by explaining that she can never die because she will live on forever in this poem, not comparing her to a summer’s day.
You May Also Find These Documents Helpful
-
In Sonnet 116, Shakespeare’s tone is idealistic, maintaining that true love “is an ever-fixed mark” and never changes or “alters when it alteration finds”. He confidently states that true love lasts forever, and “alters not with his brief hours and weeks”. Shakespeare’s conviction that love “looks on tempests and is never shaken” reveals a naïveté seldom found in Shakespeare. His firm declaration in the final couplet that “if this be error and upon me proved,/ I never writ, nor no man ever loved”, further emphasises his certainty. In Sonnet 2, the speaker’s tone is more cynical. Rather than romanticising love and beauty, Shakespeare expresses disdain for the cliché of beauty lasting forever, within “thine own deep-sunken eyes”. Sonnet 2 is addressed to a young man, presumably Shakespeare’s lover. Shakespeare condescendingly states that once “forty winters … besiege thy brow,/ and dig deep trenches in thy beauty’s field,” his only worth may be found if he raises a child. The speaker scares his subject by reminding him of his own mortality. Both Sonnets address the topic of beauty fading as time progresses. In Sonnet 116, Shakespeare declares that “Love’s not Time’s fool, though rosy lips an cheeks/ within his bending sickle’s compass come”, saying that even as death draws nearer and beauty fades, love…
- 824 Words
- 4 Pages
Good Essays -
In the poem Reflection by Yusef Komunyakaa explores the theme of sorrow which relates its story to a tragic situation about a man committing suicide. While in the poem “Walking Down Park” by Nikki Giovanni compares the modern people and the past nature.…
- 56 Words
- 1 Page
Good Essays -
Love, Not Life, Lasts Forever In William Shakespeare?s Sonnet "73," the speaker invokes a series of metaphors to characterize the nature of his old age. The structure of the sonnet also contributes to the meaning of the poem. In the first quatrain, there is the final season of a year; then, in the second quatrain, only the final hours of a day; and then, in the third quatrain, the final minutes of a fire, before the couplet resolves the argument. The metaphors begin in the first quatrain and continue throughout the sonnet, as one by one they are destroyed, just like the life that is being spoken about. This poem is not simply a procession of interchangeable metaphors; it is the story of the speaker slowly realizing the finality of his life and his impermanence in time. Through the use of the structure of "Sonnet 73" and the metaphors that describe the speaker?s death, Shakespeare conveys that while life may be short, if one can love during that lifetime, that love can live forever.…
- 1070 Words
- 3 Pages
Good Essays -
In this poem, William Shakespeare illustrates a woman who is not so imposing. Throughout the piece, the narrator compares his lover to beautiful things, but she comes out with the short end of the stick. She was not blessed with desirable attributes, yet he loves her. Unlike most poets from his time, Shakespeare does not write to please the reader’s ears but to be brutally honest in a way that is endearing, in a roundabout way. His sonnet is very atypical in the way that he describes his beloved as unappealing, but yet he is in love with her for who she is.…
- 462 Words
- 2 Pages
Good Essays -
Most of Shakespeare’s sonnets have a deep meaning of love behind them and sometimes it is death that Shakespeare uses to intensify the type of love he tries to convey to his readers.…
- 1264 Words
- 4 Pages
Better Essays -
On the other hand, the mood of “Sonnet 30” makes the reader feel depressed and at some point loveless. Also, another difference between the sonnets is the tone of each. In “Sonnet 18”, a” lovely” and “temperate” (Line 2) tone is emitted yet, the tone of “Sonnet 30” is cheerless and painful as expressed in “even as I speak, for lack of love alone.”, “Yet many a man is making friends with death”. Moreover, the different respective themes of the sonnets show a great difference between William Shakespeare’s and Edna St. Vincent Millay’s perception of love. The theme of “Sonnet 18” is “the ephemeral nature of beauty.” This theme is expressed in “But thy eternal summer […] to time thou grow'st” (Line 9-12). Conversely, the theme of “Sonnet 30”, is, the importance of love for human beings. This theme is uttered in the axiom, “Love is not all: It is not meat nor drink.” The message of “Sonnet 18” is that poetry immortalizes beauty, expressed in “But thy eternal summer shall not fade” (Line 9), while the message of “Sonnet 30” is love is not essential for human beings yet, people lack of it mentioned in “Yet many a man is making friends with death” (Line 7). Concluding, “Sonnet 18” by William Shakespeare is written in a classical style due to…
- 579 Words
- 3 Pages
Good Essays -
I find that Shakespeare 's negative inference to time is interesting and expected because in several previous and upcoming sonnets he complains about how time is stealing away his own personal youth and is bringing him closer to death. A very strong technique that he uses discreetly in my opinion is the contradiction and negating of a point in order to prove the opposite. He says that love is not subject to the effects of time, then he says but physical beauty matters. The latter contradicts the former because if looks matter then time can abuse the youth and beauty of a person leaving him/her loveless; but the brilliance of Shakespeare 's technique is that the bigger point proven is that with true love nothing maters because nothing can negatively change it at all. This takes us back to the first two lines of the sonnet saying that there is no 'impediment '. The next two lines of quatrain three simply say that true love does not last for a few hours, days, or weeks, but it lasts until your final breath taken and your final jot of blood pumped through your…
- 3174 Words
- 13 Pages
Powerful Essays -
Shakespeare uses words such as “disdains,” “repair,” and “posterity” to break up the flow of the sonnet. The sonnet does not flow incredibly easily, like most of Shakespeare’s sonnets, and does not have a really lyrical sense to it. It is more of a speech than a song. The tonal change occurs at line 12, right at the rhyming couplet. The whole sonnet up until that point is basically Shakespeare telling W.H. that all his earthly beauty will be for nothing if he does not have children. At the couplet, Shakespeare offers W.H. a way out of dying along with his image: reproduce. The last line of the sonnet is very threatening. It promises W.H. that if he does not have children then all his beauty will be meaningless because it will die with him. The poem gradually gets more serious as it progresses, starting off with a gentle nudge to get W.H. to look in the mirror and convince himself that having children is the best way to preserve his beauty, and finally in the last line Shakespeare warns W.H. that he will die with his image if he does not. The diction in this sonnet chops it up to make it more speech like than songlike. Shakespeare uses alliteration in this poem with words such as “thou though” and “thine” in line 11, and words like, “face” and “form” in line 2, along with “fresh,” in line 3. Shakespeare also uses antithesis when he puts words like “fond” and “tomb” right near each other in line 7, or the words, “renewest” and…
- 1152 Words
- 5 Pages
Good Essays -
William Shakespeare’s use of language in Sonnet 18 establishes an endearing tone in the poem. Firstly, the author uses diction in the text to support this tone of endearingness. For example, “But thy eternal summer shall not fade”(9). This entails that he is showing love and saying she is eternal, neverending, unlike summer. His word choice is enforcing the loving tone of the text.…
- 252 Words
- 2 Pages
Good Essays -
William Shakespeare has written not only plays but poems as well.the key poems here,today, include “Shall I Compare Thee To a Summer’s Day,” and “My Mistresses Eyes Are Nothing Like the Sun. ”These two poems talk and describe love but in two very different ways and perspectives,yet they were written by the same poet. This can either be because he was in both situations or his inspiration just struck. Be it as it may,they still both express love in a faithful,passionate way and a not so desirable way.…
- 1366 Words
- 6 Pages
Better Essays -
“And yes, by heaven, I think my love as rare as any she° belied with false compare”, must be the strongest point in the poem (Shakespeare). This last part of the poem is the turning point in which the reader now understand what Shakespeare was try to say. It leads the readers to believe that beauty cannot be measured just by the eyes but sometime the heart. The way that Shakespeare writes this Sonnet could lead some to thing he was a bit tired of the same old romantic poetry. He might have also been making fun of some of his fellow poets of his…
- 760 Words
- 4 Pages
Good Essays -
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. Shakespeare's "Sonnet 65" is one example of Shakespearian sonnet form and it works with the constraints of this structure to question how one can escape the ravages of time on love and beauty. Shakespeare shows that even the objects in nature least vulnerable to time like brass, stone, and iron are mortal and eventually are destroyed. Of course the more fragile aspects of nature will die if these things do. The final couplet gives hope and provides a solution to the dilemma of time by having the author overcome mortality with his immortal writings.…
- 1885 Words
- 8 Pages
Better Essays -
One of the other reasons that make this poem unusual is that it includes many figures of speech. A figure of speech is an expression or use of language to achieve a particular effect. Figures of speech also include metaphors and similes. There are some metaphors in Shakespeare 's poem while Moss 's poem is made up of very typical sentences. I think that 'summer 's day ' in Shakespeare 's poem includes lots of meaning. He mentions the day like the paragraph 1. Moss also states,…
- 745 Words
- 4 Pages
Good Essays -
This poem is a parody to the Petrarchan sonnets. The denotative meaning of parody is a humorous or satirical imitation of a piece of literature or writing (Dictionary.com), and that is exactly what he does here. Shakespeare’s goal was to “poke fun” at the love poems of his time. Petrarchan poems used worn out clichés such as “eyes like the sun” and “skin as white as snow”. I am guessing that Shakespeare was tired of hearing unreal comparisons of women to things in nature. As the last line of the sonnet states “As any she belied with false compare”. He wrote this sonnet to give a realistic comparison of a beautiful woman, without all of the exaggeration and allusions used in Petrarchan sonnets.…
- 1338 Words
- 6 Pages
Better Essays -
The sonnet has many themes that relate to the main reason the sonnet was written. Beauty is inferred to in the poem as the speakers love is compared to the summer which is also beautiful. The speaker says his the person he loves is everlastingly beautiful and how beauty fades away but the his loves beauty is always constant. The speaker starts to illustrate a picture in the readers mind that the love is a perfect being. This is another way he increases his glorification by showing how he can immortalize a great person in his writing. Another theme of this sonnet is immortality. "Shakespeare advocates seeking immortality through poetry rather than through procreation"(Sonnet 18). In the previous 17 sonnets the speaker is more focused on getting his love immortalized by procreation. In sonnet 18 his vision changes and he is more focused on immortalization by poetry.…
- 1156 Words
- 3 Pages
Better Essays