Shakespeare's sonnets

and realistic views on the endurance of love and how it is affected by the challenges in our relationships. Some of such views are portrayed in the poems; Sonnet 116, by William Shakespeare, Funeral Blues, by W.H.Auden, A Valediction: Forbidding Love, by John Donne and The Nymph’s Reply to the Shepherd, by Walter Raleigh. In the poem, Sonnet 116, William Shakespeare portrays an idealistic view on the endurance of love and explores what is meant by love. The poet…

It is a classic Shakespearian sonnet in that every other line rhymes except the last two which rhyme with each other. The content is a little misleading at first. The narrator starts by describing how his mistress’s eye’s where not as brilliant as the sun. Second that coral is redder…

Sonnet 120 is a reflection of sonnets 33-35, though leaning more to Sonnet 34 because of the fact that he uses the word ‘once’ in the first phrase. Sonnet 120 is about the unfaithfulness that existed between him and an unnamed friend and how much pain it has caused them. In the first line Shakespeare inform his reader that his beloved had shown him unkindness at certain point of time. In this context, ‘unkindness’ is believed to mean unfaithfulness, meaning the youth in question committed an…

William Shakespeare is widely recognized as the greatest influence in English literature. He was an English poet, actor and playwright. Shakespeare's extant work consists of many plays, sonnets and narrative poems. His plays are one of literature's greatest legacies, which are divided into many genres such as histories, tragedies and comedies. From famous tragedies like Macbeth and Richard III, there are many similarities as well as differences. These similarities and differences are shown in…

William Shakespeare wrote a total of 37 plays and 154 sonnets in his life; main themes in many of these plays and sonnets were love and tragedy. Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet combines the two, having tragedy be a result of love. In the play a central theme is love and its effect on those involved. Ironically, the main source of strife in the play is love, instead of being a solution, love is the cause of brawls and deaths. Throughout the play, Shakespeare explores love as a source of conflict…

“Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer’s Day?” “Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer’s Day?” is one of my favorite poems/ sonnets. The poem is in iambic pentameter like much of Shakespeare’s other works. This is significant as it changes the way his audience will read the poem. It almost gives the poem movement, as well as emphasizing certain words and phrases. This movement created by iambic pentameter functions to establish a theme of cycles. These cycles work to parallel the cycles of life. This is…

Everything Fades, Especially Love William Shakespeare’s Sonnet 116, Let me not to the marriage of true minds, conveys the idea that love is unending and only flourishes as time passes. Andrew Marvell’s poem, To His Coy Mistress, expresses the idea that there is not enough time to love emotionally and that you cannot waste time waiting for an emotional love. The love that Shakespeare desires is emotional love while the love that Marvell longs for is not true love, it is physical love. Both, in…

Every day, we hear the term ‘love’ in a plethora of situations. So, what is love? According to Shakespeare, in sonnet 116 - The first quatrain describes love as an unchangeable force in the lines “Love is not love / Which alters when it alteration finds, / Or bends with the remover to remove: / O no! it is an ever-fixed mark.” Shakespeare enforces the fact that true love always perseveres, no matter what it’s up against by using the metaphor, “That looks on tempests and is never shaken” in the…

other’s lives. However if we compare their meaning of love to the interpretation of true love in “Shakespeare’s Sonnet #116” we start to conclude that maybe true love wasn’t the case at all. To illustrate the differences in these two works let the reader look to “Shakespeare’s Sonnet #166”. Shakespeare leads off with the statement “Love is not love, which alters when it alteration finds” (Lines 2-3 Sonnet #116). This means that love is not really love if it can change due to a situation. At…

“William Shakespeare’s “Henry VI Part II” was his first play, he ever performed” (Mabillard " 2000). A man who wasn’t well known at his time began to become more distinguished as time went on. Long after the death of Shakespeare, many people claimed that he was one of the best British poets and playwrights of all time. The lacking documents and his mysterious past makes him all the more interesting. Even though we don't know much of Shakespeare, his works were contained with symbolism and…