William Shakespeare Research Paper

William Shakespeare, one of the most influential writers of 17th century, was very well known for his work in theatre and as a poet. In his sonnets, Shakespeare uses imagery and objects of nature as metaphor in describing beauty through contrast and aging.
Sonnets were the pop songs of Shakespeare’s era, a very fashionable poetic; all gentlemen were required to learn them as a discipline and a sign of one’s education. A good sonnet alluded to a good education, conveying one’s upbringing as one of a wealthier status. Although the Shakespearean sonnet, written in iambic pentameter with three quatrains, a rhyming couplet, and a rhyme scheme a-b-a-b c-d-c-d e-f-e-f g-g, was not crafted by Shakespeare, he made it popular and wrote many sonnets
in that form.
According to the baptismal register of the Holy Trinity parish church in Stratford, William Shakespeare was born April 26, 1563. Traditionally, his birthday is accepted to be on April 23, St George’s day. During this time, a child born would have had to be baptized on the next Sunday or holy day. Unless a legitimate excuse was made by the parents, there were no exceptions.
It is believed that Shakespeare probably started his education at the Stratford grammar school (a free school) by the age of six or seven. “Stratford was not a learned community” (Bloom 30). He would have learned his basic ABC or hornbook; most poets of the time did. By about the age thirteen, Shakespeare was removed from school due to his father’s social and financial difficulties. “…William Shakespeare was a rustic who could scarcely have aspired to study at Oxford, and counter –suggested that recusants avoided the oath-taking necessary for a degree. The more likely explanation is money” (Levi 27). Shakespeare was self taught owing to his father’s misfortunes and disgrace (Levi 27). It is assumed that Shakespeare worked as a butcher in addition to helping his father with his business (Shakespeare-online).
Shakespeare was a wild and innocent young man. November 27, 1582, Shakespeare formally married the already pregnant Anne Hathaway. Anne Hathaway was 8 years older than Shakespeare, who was eighteen when he impregnated the twenty-six-year-old. The couple had three children. It was after his only son died that Shakespeare realized his dreams on the English stage and moved to London (Levi 36).
Shakespeare was recognized as an established actor in London by late 1592. “The theatre was already in the hands of professionals and he did not learn its skills in the classroom” (Levi 30). There is even evidence that Shakespeare performed with the Chamberlain’s Men before Elisabeth I on more than one occasion. It was during this time with the Chamberlain’s Men that Shakespeare wrote many plays. “Three of his first comedies, The Taming of the Shrew, The two Gentlemen of Verona, and The Comedy of Errors, are all in the same classic mould, but Love’s Labour’s Lost is more courtly than others, denser in poetry, denser in comic complexity, and more private, more for real aristocracy” (Levi 77). As time went on, Shakespeare’s plays took on more complexity and poesy.
Shakespeare had entered a phase of undeniable and recognized mastery, but neither in 1598 nor at any other time did he proceed smoothly from success to success (Levi 185). By the end of Elizabeth’s reign, London life was quite troubled, a possible contributing factor to Shakespeare’s difficulty with dealing with success. Much Ado About Nothing, a play written in prose about women equaling and outwitting men, is just one of Shakespeare’s plays with many admirers. Many other plays were great successes of their day. Endymion Porter, Thomas Russell, John Davies, and Edward Bushell were just a few of Shakespeare’s close friends and contemporaries.
Shakespeare’s sonnets were published in 1609 by Thomas Thorpe, and a Mr.
W. H. is the only “begetter” of the sonnets. They were first published in quarto, this consisted of three divisions and a poem called “A Lover’s Complaint. It has “every appearance of having intentionally preserved the order in which the sonnets were written” with a few minor exceptions (Butler 8). “No second edition was called for” (Butler 9) and after this edition, the sonnets were not reprinted until 1640 when J. Benson published a work including most of sonnets but omitting 18, 19, 43, 56, 75, 76, 96, 126 and generally disarranging them. This was apparently an unintentional consequence due to his carelessness and lackadaisical attitude. In 1709, the sonnets were published with “the whole of Shakespeare’s poems” (Butler 11) in original order by Lintott. And so began the printing history of the sonnets. Many additional editions have been made and many analysis and commentary exist. As mentioned previously, the ambition of this paper is to show how in the sonnets Shakespeare describes beauty through contrast and aging. Several sonnets have been selected to emphasize his use of imagery and objects of nature as
metaphor.
Shakespeare’s sonnets are generally separated into three divisions. The first 126 are addressed to “fair youth”. Sonnets 127-152 are addressed to a “dark lady” and the final two, 153 and 154, are dedicated to cupid. Some scholars believe that the sonnets were actually written as one continuous poem, and others believe each sonnet was written individually.
Sonnet 19, considered an apostrophe to “Devouring Time”, falls under the division addressing “fair youth”, although it is the first sonnet that does not directly address the youth. Instead, the youth is referred to as “my love” here (Bloom 19). The motivation for this sonnet seems to be age. It is contrasted with youth and expressed through eloquent imagery.
Lines 1-5 describe the effects of time on various subjects such as the lion, the earth, the phoenix, and the seasons. “And do what ere though wilt swift footed time,” “To the wide world and all her fading sweets.” Here, lines 6 and 7, Shakespeare tells time that it may do what it will to the world and everything in it by “fading sweets”, meaning fading the beauty and youth.
At one point Shakespeare is demanding “O carve not with thy howers my loves faire brow,” “Nor draw no lines there with thine antique pen.” The idea displayed in these lines is Shakespeare commanding time not to create wrinkles on his lover’s forehead, “thine antique pen” being the works of time. For some it is hard to accept the appearance of wrinkles in young man’s brow as Time’s “most heinous crime”, especially after the first quatrain illustrates much more serious potential atrocities of Time. It may even seem wrong that this offense occupies the most climactic portion of the sonnet after the murderous vitality of the opening quatrain (Vendler 124).
The idea of aging with time is then contrasted with everlasting youthfulness. “Yet doe thy worst ould Time dispight thy wrong,” “My love shall in my verse ever live young.” In this couplet, Shakespeare seems to have accepted that time will age the sweetest of things, but time cannot take away the youth of his love, because through recording his love in verse, he creates immortality. “Yet the worst level of crime is reluctantly conceded in the couplet; the young man will be destroyed in organic form and the locus of a pattern must shift from body to verse” (Vendler 125).
With an exception to the “master-mistress” sonnet (20), sonnet 87 is Shakespeare’s prime specimen of feminine endings. The femininity of this poem (also in 126) enacts the speaker’s unwillingness to let the young man go (Vendler 380). From the first line, Shakespeare directly addresses “fair youth,” also known as the young man and/or “my love.” This sonnet appears to be a tenacious farewell to the young man, certainly a difficult one.
Physical passion is a leading role in sonnet 87. Joseph Pequigney, who argues the whole “fair youth” sequence is a masterpiece of homoerotic poetry, demonstrates this argument through interpretations of a complex and psychological series of the poet’s strong erotic attachment to fair youth (which can be found in an indepth look at sonnets 1-126) (Bloom 41). In the first line, “Farewell, thou art too deare for my possessing,” appears to be referencing a carnal possessing of the young man. The second line is one of two masculine lines in the sonnet, “And like enough thou knowst thy estimate.” This line seems to allude to the young man knowing his worth and knowing the speaker’s wish and having no intention of granting it. Line 4 implies that the young man’s “worth” gives him “releasing”, meaning that the beauty or attractiveness of the young man is able to set him free by giving the power of being with whomever he wishes, and a persuasive power as well. Line 5 inadvertently states that the poet will never get to be intimate with the young man. Evidence is displayed in previous lines stating that the writer can never “possess” the young man. In later lines, and especially in the couplet, dreams seem to be the only way the speaker can be with the young man. All in all, Shakespeare expresses the sadness and desire of the reader but also the realization of the farewell, seen in the last quatrain.
Lines 2 and 4 are the only lines in the sonnet with a masculine ending (estimate and determinate) and are tied financial transactions. The repetition of several forms of the word gift (give, gives, gift gav’st) counters the hard legal imagery of financially descriptive words (estimate, charter, bonds, determinate) creating a back and forth movement between two poles (after the farewell is set) (Vendler 381).
The apparentness of desire and want sets up Murray Kreiger’s view on Sonnet 87 as a punctured dream (Bloom 31). As stated in previously mentioned lines, the speaker has an unyielding desire for this young man but knows it will never be. The couplet adds to Kreiger’s theory by saying “Thus have I had thee as a dreame doth flatter,” “In sleepe a King, but waking no such matter.” In these last two lines Shakespeare distinctly says that the poet dreams of the young man having mutual feelings for the speaker. This makes him king in his sleep because he has everything he wants, as a king would due to his wealth and pride, but when he wakes he is no longer as content as a king because his fantasy has dematerialized.
In this sonnet, Shakespeare uses sleep, an element of nature as a metaphor. It is a passage between the speaker’s reality and fantasy. Sleep is used as a contrast of beauty, or as stated in the poem, worth. The word “worth” is used twice in Sonnet 87 (in lines 3 and 9) to convey ‘value’ or ‘excellence’ based on personal beauty (Bloom 42). In reality, the young man is able to use his beauty as a tool that “gives thee releasing”. In sleep, or the poet’s dream, it is rather a grace or gift.
Sonnet 129 begins with great intensity. It is one of the first dark lady sonnets. The young man in the first set of sonnets seemed to be the source for the poet’s praise, even leaving him with a loss for words (Bloom 70). This becomes sharply contrasted by the dark lady, who acts as the discourse of the poet’s lust.
This sonnet exhibits several apparent changes of heart, possibly about a sexual encounter. Helen Vendler interprets it to be a “problem of construction” for the writer, “…we see that the artist’s first choice must be whether to represent his psychological narrative of submission to lust passionally and chronologically—just as sequentially happened from initial excitement to shame, and analysis—or analytically and retrospectively, as one looks back on that submission in later evaluation” (Vendler 550).
It is expressed in several analyses by scholars such as Helen Vendler, Thomas M. Greene, and Joel Fineman, that there is some degree of sexual element portrayed in Sonnet 129. Whether or not this is true, the poem is certainly a source of ardent impassioned emotion. The first quatrain expresses this by first pointing out “Th’expense of a spirit in a waste of shame is lust in action,” articulating that the poet had an unsavory experience with love that led to shame. In the second line, “in action” and “till action” are the poet’s first defense against lust (Vendler 551). He then states that lust is “perjured, murderous, bloody, full of blame, savage, extreme, rude, cruel, and not to trust.” Throughout the second and third quatrain, he continues to use imagery to express the agony lust put him through, and then calls it a “bliss in truth” that proved proceeded to be “a very woe” and in line 12 “Before a joy proposed, behind, a dreame.” In these lines, it is clear that the speaker has accepted his submission to lust and his very passionate emotions have become more melancholy.
The couplet provides a sufficient conclusion to the sonnet. “All this the world well knowes yet none knowes well,” “To shun the heaven that leads men to this hell.” These lines are critical because although the speaker’s emotions seemed to have become less vehement, it still expresses how devilish and deceiving lust is, especially apparent in the last line.
This poem uses human emotion to sharply contrast the speaker’s old feelings of lust (from the “fair youth” collection) with the new view on lust. A contrast of beauty isn’t very prominent in this sonnet with an exception of the last line when heaven (beauty) is compared to hell.
In Sonnet 141, more anguish and frustration is declared by the artist towards the dark lady. The dark lady appears to have a wandering eye and the speaker seems to be questioning her faithfulness. “The logical argument of the body of this sonnet says that although ten forces (the five senses and the five wits—imagination, memory, etc.) are arrayed against the single (one) heart” (Vendler 595).
The speaker seems much more affectionate towards the dark lady. In the first quatrain, he exposes his true emotions for her mentioning that his eyes see her flaws, but he doesn’t love her with his eyes, he loves her with his heart that loves what his eyes “despise”.
Both the second and third quatrains send the message that the speaker knows that the dark lady has a noticeable wandering eye that leads the speaker to question whether or not she is faithful. He thinks he sees the truth from her actions, but he wants to hear it directly from her. He seeks an answer.
As Booth said, the couplet does not seem to be logically joined to the rest of the sonnet, although it contains words that make a connection with the rest of the sonnet (Booth 488). The contrast between “reason,” “wisdom,” and “the power of wisdom”, that is executed in the rest of the sonnet, is completely absent in the couplet. What may be able to be concluded from the couplet is that the dark lady made it clear she was unfaithful and he “gains” pain as an award from “sin”, the sin being her unfaithfulness.
This sonnet uses imagery (especially in the second quatrain) to contrast several different ideas (like those in paragraph above) including beauty. Descriptive imagery allows the reader to capture the beauty the speaker’s heart sees in the dark lady and contrast it with her potential sin that may have been confirmed in the couplet.
Sonnets 153 and 154 are frivolously dedicated to cupid. They both seem to be variations of a six-line Greek epigram by Marianus Scholasticus. This epigram was printed in Florence in 1594, but it isn’t likely Shakespeare understood the Greek text. Although it is untold what Shakespeare’s source was, there were also myths of Cupid turning cold springs hot with his torch of love (Booth 533). Although the sonnets appear to be close in plot, they are not completely corresponding; Sonnet 153 is Cupid’s tale, and 154 is the story of the lover. There is not a whole lot of validity to the Greek myths about cupid, even these two poems contradict each other. “Each is an Anacreotonic narrative about the unquenchability of love,” (Vendler 648).
Sonnet 153 is very straight forward with its story of Cupid. It starts with Cupid having fell asleep and a nearby maid caused his torch to stoke a “love-kindling” fire.
In a could valley-fountaine of that ground:
Which borrowed from this holie fire of love,
A datelesse lively still to indure,
And grew a seething bath, which yet men prove
In these lines, the maid has used Cupid’s flame of love to (everlastingly) heat the cold spring.
The next few lines explain the discovery of the newly hot spring’s healing powers, it provides “Against strange malladies, a sovereigne cure.” Proceeding this revelation, it is revealed to the reader that the maid, that is the source of cupid’s love flame, is the speaker’s lover. He finds he wants to be cured of her love, but finds no relief from the bath. Sonnet 154 begins with Cupid still sleeping, now laying beside him is the “heart-inflaming brand”. In lines 3-5, many nymphs, who had vowed chasity, came by but only the fairest of them picked up the flame. She then, in lines 6-8, describes cupid as the “general of hot desire” and the nymph had “disarmed” him. The nymph then, just as the maid in the previous sonnet, quenched the brand in a cool well, giving it perpetual heat and “Growing a bath of healthfull remedy.” Just like in Sonnet 153, the writer claims the nymph as his mistress and he then goes to the bath for a cure, summed up in the last line, “Love’s fire heats water, water cools not love.” Again, the speaker was not able to find a cure in the healing
waters.
Sonnets 153 and 154 do not exemplify Shakespeare’s way of using imagery and beauty, but they are also exceptions of the sonnets. They both tell a trivial and charming tale, but do not seem to have much of a deeper meaning. But they are only two of the one hundred and fifty-four sonnets.
In his sonnets, with the small exception of those dedicated to cupid (153 and 154), Shakespeare uses imagery and objects of nature as metaphor in describing beauty through contrast and aging. Because of this, remains one of the most influential writers this world has seen.
The level of depth that lies in these sonnets, was just merely touched on in the analyses above. What makes these sonnets so enthralling, and a topic of choice for many scholars is that there is no black and white true meaning. Shakespeare left these poems open to many different interpretations. Many will go through a constant struggle trying to indicate what exactly was meant by Shakespeare, but that is why he is still very widely known and discussed today. New insight and understanding on his various works will continue to keep Shakespeare immortal.