Sonnet 18 Research Paper
Manpreet Singh
Mrs. Dumbleton
ADV ELA 11
11/9/14
Sonnet 18 Shakespeare’s Sonnet 18 is one of his most popular sonnet ever to be written. Shakespeare 's Sonnet 18 at first glance looks to be a love poem but is actually about the speaker glorifying himself. How does the speaker try to immortalize his love through poetry? The speaker states how beautifully unceasing his love is by comparing the love to a summer day. Then the speaker goes on to state how his loves beauty is everlasting unlike the summer. The speaker continues on to say how he will be able to immortalize his love by putting him in the poem. He believes his poetry is going to be read through history hence immortalizing his love. Instead of being about love its more so on the point of his own talent as a writer and his talent leading to the immortalization. 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. The poem is a sonnet, a brief poem consisting of fourteen lines. Shakespeare sonnets have a rhyme of ABAB, CDCD, EFEF, GG and they also have three groups of four lines called quatrains and the two last lines are called couplets. "The speaker states, as long as people are alive to
Mrs. Dumbleton
ADV ELA 11
11/9/14
Sonnet 18 Shakespeare’s Sonnet 18 is one of his most popular sonnet ever to be written. Shakespeare 's Sonnet 18 at first glance looks to be a love poem but is actually about the speaker glorifying himself. How does the speaker try to immortalize his love through poetry? The speaker states how beautifully unceasing his love is by comparing the love to a summer day. Then the speaker goes on to state how his loves beauty is everlasting unlike the summer. The speaker continues on to say how he will be able to immortalize his love by putting him in the poem. He believes his poetry is going to be read through history hence immortalizing his love. Instead of being about love its more so on the point of his own talent as a writer and his talent leading to the immortalization. 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. The poem is a sonnet, a brief poem consisting of fourteen lines. Shakespeare sonnets have a rhyme of ABAB, CDCD, EFEF, GG and they also have three groups of four lines called quatrains and the two last lines are called couplets. "The speaker states, as long as people are alive to
Cited: Jankowski, Theodora A. "Sonnet 18." In Sauer, Michelle M. The Facts On File Companion to British Poetry before 1600. New York: Facts On File, Inc., 2008.Bloom 's Literature. Facts On File, Inc. Web. 9 Nov. 2014 <http://www.fofweb.com/activelink2.asp? ItemID=WE54&WID=17285&SID=5&iPin=CBP0501&SingleRecord=True>. Lord, Russell. "Sonnet 18."Masterplots II: Poetry, Revised Edition (2002): 1-2. LiteraryReference Center. Web. 12 Nov. 2014. William Shakespeare "Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer 's Day? (Sonnet 18) - Poem by William Shakespeare." Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer 's Day? (Sonnet 18) - Poem by William Shakespeare. Web. 9 Nov. 2014. "Sonnet 18." Poetry for Students. Ed. Marie Rose Napierkowski and Mary Ruby. Vol. 2. Detroit: Gale, 1998. 221-233. Gale Virtual Reference Library. Web. 9 Nov. 2014.