Shakespeare Sonnet 29 Analysis Essay

Improved Essays
An overall theme within Shakespearean sonnets is love (Mabillard 2009). “Sonnet 29” addresses the conflict between love and self representation within a young man. In the first eight lines, the octave, the young man portrays himself as an “outcast” (Clauson 2009). The young man’s portrayal of himself, as an outcast, is emphasized throughout the octave through the man’s envy of what other men possess. The octave is then followed by the setset, in which the young man decides to change his “state” and is joyous over the remembrance of his “sweet love”(Clauson 2009). Within the setset, the young man uses a simile, comparing himself to a lark singing, to illustrate the great happiness that love has brought him. The point of importance is the internal conflict of the young man, found within the Volta- “With what I most enjoy contented least.” The Volta juxtaposes the ideas of “sweet love” and self represented loneliness in order to present the idea that to be truly loved by someone is more important than the negative feelings towards one’s self.
The Volta, “ With what I most enjoy contented least, ” is a paradox, the young man
…show more content…
The significance of the conflict of love vs. self representation is ever-present in our society, especially in the younger generations. Often times when adolescents are dealing with societal pressures and their own feelings of contempt, they fall into the trap of depression and sadness; forgetting that they themselves have loved ones or people to turn to talk to when they need them. Similar to Whitman’s use of the sonnet as a platform to write about his own experiences in “Hours continuing long” (Clausson 2009), The conflict between love vs. self representation, within “Sonnet 29” can be used to help an individual understand how they represent themselves when they consider the love they have gained from

Related Documents

  • Improved Essays

    We envision a tall strong man being taken to war, but the end of the sonnet produces an image of war enticing her lover away. Now that her lover is dead, she has to cope and find her…

    • 540 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Each quatrain serves an individual part to the sonnet’s overarching purpose. The couplet at the end of the sonnet then will conclusively describe the purpose of the sonnet as a whole. The first quatrain of “Sonnet 2” describes the inherent sustainability and resistance to change when love is elevated beyond simply a physical bond. The author writes, “Love it not love which alters when…

    • 1036 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The sixteenth-century English poet George Gascoigne employs increasing intensities of images and exaggerated and emphasized diction in the carefully structured form of his poem, “For That He Looked Not Upon Her,” to explain the reason he cannot look the woman he loves in the face. The standard sonnet form of the poem supports the speaker’s convincing defense for his actions. It follows the classic “ABAB” rhyme scheme, has perfectly even iambic pentameters, and ends with a rhyming couplet which emphasizes his argument. The speaker begins by addressing a possible ambiguity because his lover may “think it strange” that he does not look at her.…

    • 627 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Poetry is generally used to tell a story whether it be about love or an epic adventure. Sonnets specifically tend to deal with complications that come with love. Billy Collins however decided to go a different route in his poem “Sonnet.” His poem is a lesson about the sonnet and how he believes the form needs to change. He does this by explaining the different forms of a sonnet, by adding in characters to support his claims, and by using figurative language to emphasize the changes he believes need to be made.…

    • 1016 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Good evening and welcome to today’s seminar, my name is Jemma and I’ll be talking about two of Shakespeare’s poem, both representing the theme of love. The two poems that will be explored today are Sonnet 18 and Sonnet 130. Although both of these poems represent the theme of love, they do so in different ways.…

    • 894 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Juxtaposing this idea is “Sonnet 43” where the poem discusses the love of a woman towards…

    • 1199 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    In this essay I will be exploring the ways that relationships are shown (presented) in sonnet 116 and sonnet 43. In Sonnet 43 explores on relationship, but this form is related more from experience and portrays a truthful view on love, different to Sonnet 116, where love is seem to be more committed. Barrett expresses her unconditional and true love towards her husband. This could be related to her own experience…

    • 1428 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Modern Sonnets: Extending Beyond Petrarchan Idealism Through Lineation and Meter Historically, the sonnet is a form that expresses beauty, perfection, and ideals. While the Petrarchan blazon sonnet is focused exclusively on objectifying the female body, modern sonnets such as Alice Notley’s “Sonnet 15” and Claude McKay’s “The Castaways” veer away from that Petrarchan idealism. In “Sonnet 15”, Notley writes of the speaker’s heartbreak from a past relationship.…

    • 1541 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Love can be expressed in numerous ways. From the earliest times, poetry has been used to express one’s love. Such is the case in these two poems to be discussed here: “Sonnet 130” by William Shakespeare and “The Flea” by John Donne. Donne is known for his dense erotic poems and Shakespeare is greatly appreciated for his rich and numerous sonnets and plays of varied interests throughout literature history. Therefore, here the plot, tone, expression and meaning of the poems by Shakespeare and Donne reflect the love theme in their own way.…

    • 1277 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    “Love is Not All” is a sonnet written by Edna St. Vincent Millay regarding a personal message directing the question of value and intensity of genuine love. This fourteen-line sonnet exploits both Shakespearean and Petrarchan sonnet designs. In most Shakespearean sonnets, the turn takes place between the twelfth and thirteenth lines, but the turn in “Love is Not All” does not. Millay’s poem shows a turn after the octave (happens in Petrarchan sonnets), making it a split into two cases or topics. The first eight lines, or octave, introduces that love is not all it is sought out to be, whereas the last six lines, or the sestet, shows a new thought and the speaker’s feelings regarding love.…

    • 751 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Sonnet 134, AnalysisNirantar YakthumbaBased on the persona’s love that is unreciprocated by his beloved, the Poet illustrates in this sonnet, an internal conflict in the persona. The wholly bitter tone establishes a holistically integrating theme of being torn apart for love and also an atmosphere of histrionic resentment engorged with Petrarch’s hyperbolized emotions. Divided into an octet and a sestet, which are respectively divided into two quatrains and two triplets, the sonnet follows a strict formula of end-stopped lines and medial caesurae: “I find no peace || and have no arms for war |” (l. 1); The use of lineation in this sonnet adds to the conflict in the poem as tropic figures of speech that insinuate a sense of paradox are used ubiquitously: oxymora and antitheses are used to contrast ideas separated by the medial caesurae; “My jailer opens not, nor locks the door,” (l. 5) gives further evidence to the point postulated, how can a jailer not lock yet not open a door simultaneously? The end-stopped lines and the medial caesurae suggest a sense of finality and possibly a disheveled state of emotion as the abrupt pauses break the flow of the recitation and reflect the disturbances in the persona’s emotions, to me the fact that the poem keeps cycling forward as the paradoxical wheel that it is, intimates an anguished…

    • 727 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Secondly, the way that Shakespeare constantly refers to himself in progressively vaguer terms. Amongst the three quatrains, he starts with “I”, then “the hand”, and ends with “verse”. This progressively diminishes the thought of Shakespeare into just the written work he has created. Subliminally, the reader will only associate Shakespeare, and his death, with his written verses, making it harder to forget him. Ultimately, this sonnet successfully makes the reader think more about Shakespeare even when the lines protest for the…

    • 1115 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    It could be suggested that through the verse form of the sonnet, alongside poetic devices, a poem can generate meaning. In Shakespeare’s Sonnet 130, it can be argued the sonnet form, with its subconcious expectations of formal conventions, and the usual notion of a sonnet being concerned with love is adhered to. However, in other ways Shakespeare breaks this and subverts these usual notions through the use of contradictions and paradoxical statements. This links to the idea that Shakespeare embraces the use of poetic devices, such as rhyme in order to convey a different message in this Sonnet, compared to the typical form. Shakespeare presents Sonnet 130 as an archetype in the structual form of the Sonnet.…

    • 1337 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Sonnet 130 Analysis Essay

    • 761 Words
    • 4 Pages

    An Explication of Love: “Sonnet 130” Shakespeare’s “Sonnet 130” is a powerful poem that describes love as something based off of more than mere beauty. The poem depicts the speaker pointing out the many imperfections of his mistress. This is a far cry from the ideal women many poets depict. An English or Shakespearean sonnet consists of fourteen lines “composed of three quatrains and a terminal couplet in iambic pentameter with the rhyme pattern abab cdcd efef gg” (“Shakespearean sonnet”). In “Sonnet 130,” Shakespeare establishes a shifting tone through the quatrain structure, words that target the senses, and a repetition of words and poem structure that can be related to many aspects of love.…

    • 761 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Sonnet 73 Poetry Analysis

    • 760 Words
    • 4 Pages

    He tells us that it is important that we love beyond all measures and make the most of our youth. He warns us that we will have to leave our youth before long so appreciate it, as we wont be young forever. The natural world has always been an important subject for Shakespearian poetry. In Sonnet ‘73’, nature was a dominant theme and occupied a very prominent role.…

    • 760 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays

Related Topics