Sonnet 18, Shall I Compare Thee Essay Example For Students

Sonnet 18, Shall I Compare Thee Essay Sonnet 18, Shall I Compare Thee, Is written to express love. Shakespeare opens the sonnet with the question, Shall I compare thee to a summers day? He then proceeds to do just that. At the beginning of the first quatrain, Shakespeare answers that question by saying that she is more lovely and more temperate: than a summers day. The colon after temperate shows that he is about to give us a list of reasons why she is better. This list takes up the second half of the first quatrain and the whole of the second. Shakespeare complains that the summer can have rough windes and doesnt last long enough. He also complains about how the summer is too extreme, varying between too hot and too cold, Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines, and often is his gold complexion dimd. He says that every faire from faire some-time declines, not through choice, but through chance or natures changing course. These are things that he does not like about summer. By comparing his love to summer he may be thought to imply that she may have these faults too but this is corrected in the next quatrain. After this list of summers detriments there is a turning point to the sonnet that starts with the word But. Shakespeare uses the third quatrain to write about how she does not possess summers failings. Her eternal summer will not fade and she will stay beautiful. . Whereas summer is too hot or cold, she does not have emotions that are too extreme. She will defy death who will not be able to brag thou wanderst in his shade. Here death is personified to emphasize its power but she is more powerful and death will not affect her. The rhyming couplet at the end of the sonnet is used by Shakespeare to boast about the fact that his opinions of her beauty are correct. He is boasting about how he is such a good writer that he can make her beauty immortal by capturing it in this poem. All through this poem there is the theme of immortality. This sonnet is aimed at making the subject immortal by capturing her beauty so that it will last forever. This sonnets purpose is to say that unlike summer, which is the most beautiful month of the year but can be extreme, unpredictable and short, Shakespeares subject is constantly beautiful and that beauty will last forever. Sonnet 116 is another love sonnet written by Shakespeare with similar themes. This sonnet, like sonnet 18, has a theme of eternity. The difference is that whereas sonnet 18 is about the lover being eternal, sonnet 116 is about love itself being eternal. Shakespeare starts this sonnet by saying let me not to the marriage of true minds admit impediments this shows that he is talking about true love and not just lust. Marriage in this case referring to a binding union and mindes coming together rather than bodies. This true love is very strong and does not alter when it alteration findes or bends with the remover to remove Shakespeare uses repetition to emphasise that true love does not change and is constant. Shakespeare tells us what love is not in order to define what love is. Let me not to the marriage love is not love . In the second quatrain Shakespeare uses metaphoric imagery to tell us what love is rather than what it is not, he tells us that it is an ever fixed marke, that looks on tempests and is never shaken. It is a reliable, stable, constant thing which can withstand lifes turbulence, emotional turmoil and arguments. True love will never be altered by anything and guides people through life in the same way that the north star guides boats, it is the star to every wandring barke. This is an extended metaphor, using the same imagery to illustrate a slightly different point. According to Shakespeare, Loves worths unknown, although his higth be taken it is priceless although it can be measured as the stars height is measured using a sextant. In the third quatrain Shakespeare goes back to defining love but what it is not, lovs not times foole and love alters not with his breefe hours . The Power of Love: Truth, Nature or Society EssayWhat shocks us the most is the casual way in which the tale of murder is told. Porphyrias lover refers to it as a thing to do. The use of the word thing implies that it is a minor incident without consequence. The use of a thing to do a being the indefinite article, makes the action he is considering even more casual, rather than referring to it as the thing to do. The matter of fact tones in which he says And strangled her brings us down very hard from an atmosphere of love and calmness to a shocking murder. Porphyria did not expect to be murdered, in fact she would have taken the wrapping of her hair around her neck to be an act of tenderness. It was not a spontaneous murder as Porphyrias lover debated what to do; it was the murder of a possessive lover. We know that he was obsessive about Porphyria the way he says that moment she was mine, mine he wants to own her and the repetition of the word mine emphasizes that. After the murder, Porphyrias lover convinces himself no pain felt she and reinforces it I am quite sure she felt no pain. He does not feel guilty and deludes himself that she is still alive. He opens her eyes, which are now innocent, and without a stain all of the pride and vainer ties she had previously have gone. Porphyrias lover unties the hair around Porphyrias neck, which releases the pressure of blood to her head and her blood returns to her face and makes her appear to be blushing. He then kisses her and is convinced that she blushed bright beneath my burning kiss. He says that all night long we have not stirred he thinks that it is because they are lying next to each other and have not stirred because they are content, but in fact Porphyria cannot stir as she is dead. He does not think he has done anything wrong and that his action was sanctioned by God as God has not said a word. The similarities between Brownings Porphyrias lover and Shakespeares sonnets are the idea of eternity, Shakespeare talks about love or the lover being made immortal through his skill of writing, Browning talks about love being preserved eternally by killing the lover. All it scorned at once is fled, And I, its love, am gained instead. Both writers use weather imagery, Shakespeare uses strong naturalistic imagery to compare love to a summers day in sonnet 18 and stars and tempests in sonnet 116, Browning used the weather to set the scene and dark mood for his poem. Both poems are from a male viewpoint, both Porphyrias lover, Browning and Shakespeare being male, there is no female input to any of the poems and all the poems make confident boasts. Shakespeare uses the couplets at the end of his sonnets to say that his ideas are right, Browning at the end of Porpyrias lover, writes that Porphyrias lover is confident that he has done the right thing.