Shakespeare (Sonnet No 18, 66,116)
Shakespeare's Sonnets: He
has written 154 sonnets. He did not write
his sonnets for publication.
Thomas Thorpe published them in 1609 without his permission. These sonnets are amatory in
character but it was in these sonnets that Shakespeare bared his soul and must
have found their publication quite embarrassing. In some of
his sonnets he reflects on
death, lust, physical union and the soul of the man.
Shake
spears sonnets fall in three groups:
1. 1-126 Addressed to a fair youth with whom the
poet seems to have had a romantic relationship.
1-17 Procreation Sonnet: they encourage the young man they address to
marry and father children.
18-126 Sonnets focus on the power of poetry and pure love to defeat death
and enemies
Sonnets from 78--86 contains 9 sonnets addressed to a Rival Poet (probably
George Chapman)
2. Sonnets from 127-152 contain 28 sonnets
addressed to a dark lady. She is promiscuous and cunning, with whom the poet
and the fair youth are in love.
3. Last
two 153 and 154 are
addressed to cupid the god of Love, thus making all 154 in the sequence.
Form and structure of
the sonnets:
The sonnets are almost
all constructed of three quatrains (four-line stanzas) followed by a final
couplet. The sonnets are composed in iambic pentameter, the metre used in
Shakespeare's plays.
The rhyme
scheme is ABAB CDCD EFEF GG. Sonnets using this scheme are known as
Shakespearean sonnets, or English sonnets, or Elizabethan sonnets. Often, at
the end of the third quatrain occurs the volta ("turn"), where the
mood of the poem shifts, and the poet expresses a turn of thought.
There
are a few exceptions: Sonnets 99, 126, and 145. Number 99 has fifteen
lines. Number 126 consists of six couplets, and two blank
lines marked with italic brackets; 145 is in iambic tetrameters, not
pentameters. In one other variation on the standard structure, found for
example in sonnet 29, the rhyme scheme is changed by repeating the second (B)
rhyme of quatrain one as the second (F) rhyme of quatrain three.
Sonnet-18 (Shakespeare)
Shall I compare thee to a summer’s
day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling
buds of May,
And summer’s lease hath all too
short a date;
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion
dimm'd;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance or nature’s changing course
untrimm'd;
But thy eternal summer shall not
fade,
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st;
Nor shall death brag thou wander’st
in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou grow’st:
So long as men can breathe or eyes
can see,
So long lives this, and this
gives life to thee.
Difficult
Words Meaning:
temperate : Which is not overcome by passion.
the eye of heaven : Here
it refers to thew sun.
every fair from fair sometime declines
: the beauty declines with the passage of time. nature's
changing course : the change which comes with the age.
that fair thou ow'st : The
beauty which is possessed by the beloved of the speaker.
in eternal lines to time thou
growest : The speaker wants to
inform his beloved that he has made her immortal with the help of his art i.e.
poetry.
Paraphrase of Sonnet 18
Shall
I compare you to a summer's day?
You are lovelier and more stable:
Irregular winds shake the darling buds of May
And
summer is shorter:
At
times the sun is too hot,
Or frequently goes at the back the clouds;
And all beautiful things sometime will lose its beauty,
By
bad luck or by nature's intended out course.
But
your youth shall not grow fainter,
Nor
will you lose the beauty that you acquire;
Nor
will death declare you for his own,
Because
in my everlasting poetry you will live forever.
So
long as there are human beings on this earth,
So
long will this poem live on, making you eternal.
Summary:
This "Sonnet 18" was written by William
Shakespeare. The sonnet was probable written in the 1590s, and was published
after 1609. Like many of Shakespeare's sonnets, the sonnet struggles with the
nature of magnificence and with the ability of poetry to represent that beauty.
Approving an unknown person (young man or his beloved. Shakespeare uses Sonnet 18 to praise his beloved’s beauty.
This is the
first poem in the sonnets not to clearly promote the young man to have
children. The poem is simple in language and meaning. Numerous
Literary devices develop the poems meaning through the use of form, imagery,
and symbolic language to express how his beloved possesses an everlasting
beauty that far outshines the cheerfulness of that summer day. This sonnet stresses on the charm of a friend or beloved, with the narrator
of the sonnet firstly asking a symbolic issue about evaluating their subject to
a summer's day. He then goes on to show the consequences of the weather
conditions, mentioning both an calm summer's day and he did not appreciate faint sun and irregular winds of autumn.
Theme:
The theme of the sonnet is the supremacy of the speaker’s poem to challenge
time and last forever, carrying the beauty of the beloved for future
generations. The constancy of love and its command
to immortalize ones beloved is the theme of this poem.
Analysis and
Explanation:
Stanza-1:
The
speaker starts first line the sonnet with a question as: “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?” and
gives the answer to this question in the next eleven lines which
are dedicated to such a comparison. This line is
almost a taunt, showing the speaker's ambiguity as he endeavors to evaluate his
lover with a sunny day. The symbolic question is created for both narrator of
the sonnet and its readers.
The
second line refers openly to the lover with the use of the second-person
pronoun Thou, which is now outdated. In
line 2, the narrator instructs what mainly distinguish the young man from the
summer's day: he is "more lovely and more temperate." Summer's days have
a tendency toward extremes: they are shaken by "rough winds"; in
them, the sun ("the eye of heaven") often shines "too hot,"
or too dim.
In the 3rd line the speaker starts
to epitomize nature. In other words, he uses the literary term personification
and personifies the summer sounds as if he’s talking about a person. He finds
the faults in the nature and says that tough summer winds warn those new
blossom buds that burst up in May, and summer just doesn’t last for very long.
He says that the summer is very short and ends very quickly.
Stanza-2: In this stanza the poet makes use of the main personification of nature. The
speaker says the sun is hotter than his lover. In this stanza the speaker
compares the sun with the ‘eye of heave’. In this stanza the poet says that
everything lasts its charm and fades with the passage of time. In this stanza
the speaker says the life of beautiful things is short and their beauty ‘fades’
with passage of time.
Staaza-3: In this stanza the speaker assures his lover
that his beauty will not fade with the passage of time. He assures his lover
that he will become immortal and will he will be remembered by future
generation through his poem.
Sonnet 66 (Shakespeare)
Tir'd with
all these, for restful death I cry,
As, to behold desert a beggar born,
And needy nothing trimm'd in jollity,
And purest faith unhappily forsworn,
And gilded honour shamefully misplac'd,
And maiden virtue rudely strumpeted,
And right perfection wrongfully disgrac'd,
And strength by limping sway disabled,
And art made
tongue-tied by authority,
And folly, doctor-like, controlling skill,
And simple truth miscall'd simplicity,
And captive good attending captain ill.
Tir'd with all these, from these would I be gone,
Save that, to die, I leave my
love alone.
Difficult
Words Meaning:
Tired with all these: fatigued
As : for example
desert : a worthy person
a beggar born :poor
needy nothing : an unimportant person who has no good qualities
trimm'd in jollity : done up in playful and costly clothes and
ornaments.
purest faith : one who reveal trust or is pure in heart.
unhappily : unfortunately; miserably.
forsworn : deceived
maiden virtue : an innocent maiden.
rudely strumpeted : declare as a whore.
right perfection : actual
wrongfully : immorally, unfairly.
strength : the strength of knowing the right course
of action.
limping sway : influence
art : skill
authority : a person in power.
folly : silliness, unawareness.
controlling : limiting, hindering.
simple truth : plain truth, unadorned truth.
miscalled : wrongfully named.
simplicity : foolishness, absurdity.
captive : arrested, imprisoned
attending : taking instruction from.
captain ill : wicked person in a position of authority.
Save
that : except that.
Paraphrase
Tried
of all the such things, I cry out for death:
Because I
see the merits to be in rag clothes a poor man,
And
worthlessness dressed up in fancy clothes,
And faith
deceived by infidelity,
And
magistrate, priest wearing gilt braiding
And a virgin
raped and turned into a whore,
And
virtuousness falsely accused,
And the
sturdy hindered by the feeble
And art
suppressed by the power,
And a fool
tells expert what to do,
And a simple
sincere truth called simplistic,
And an
humble, a prisoner of war, is a slave to administrator,
I tired of
all these things, I wish to be free of all these,
I don’t want
die because my love will be alone.
Summary: ‘Sonnet 66,’ also recognized as “Tired with all these, for restful death I
cry,” is at 66-number out of 156 Sonnets of Shakespeare. It
is part of the Bard’s well-known Fair Youth sequence of sonnets. These sonnets are dedicated to a young, handsome
unknown man. In this poem the poet mourns the fraud and deceitfulness of the humankind,
from which he wishes to be freed. The
speaker of this poem says he is exhausted of everything and he wishes for death
to rest eternally. He does not like
seeing worthy persons become unfortunate beggars and those who are wealthy and require
nothing are clothed in fancy clothes.
The speaker of this
poem says that hounors are given to those who don’t deserve them. Also women
who are evidently innocent act like rude compromised women or prostitutes and those
who are not guilty are defamed and dishonored. The physically powerful people
are disabled by weak power. The speaker also says that
foolishness limiting the proceed of knowledge; and simple truth being released
as unsophisticated; and good taking orders from evil. He is tired with all
these things wants to getaway, with the exception of that by dying he would be
abandoning his love.
Theme:
The theme of this
sonnet is the dark side of this world. The speaker in this poem highlights the
various thing that make his life bored and tried and same is the case of all
the people of the world. The another theme of the poem is the corruption in
this world. Man
is shown what it is like to be caused by the dark nature of the real
world which is represented by Shakespeare how dejected and defeated the speaker
is in a morally corrupt world.
Analysis
and Explanation:
Stanza-1:
In this first stanza the speaker begins by announcing that he
is fed up by this world. The world has really gotten to him, wearing his heart
and making him long for the calm of death. It is there that he is finally going
to find rest. He wants death because he has become exhausted from
facing worldly tests and troubles that are present in various and varied issues
of life in general.
First, the
speaker criticizes that people who appear deserving of a good life are often
born into and burdened with wretched poverty. Having observed this situation
and tried to appreciate the allegations arising there from, the speaker has
been submitted exhausted and fatigued. On the other hand those who appear less worthy
are many times bounded with the good things of life, as those with a better
claim go without.
He starts by explaining that he is sad with
good people who are destined to live as beggars when they don’t deserve that fate.
He is annoyed with the contrary side of that rich get to disguise in
cheerfulness but don’t deserve that. The last announcement of this stanza refers
to people who smash promises that should be blessed.
Stanza-2:
In the second stanza the speaker carries on complaints. He depicts how there is a large group of people who accept benefactor that are disgracefully mislaid. He also speaks on the maiden who has lost her virtue and becomes a prostitute.
Stanza-3:
The speaker pressed on with his list of observations of things that annoy him. Present-day examples of art are made are the movements in modernist and postmodernist art. The authority that unfairly controls the strong and excellent also controls the art as well as an artist. They are silent or are silenced by the higher authority in power. This same power misused by the doctors who control the ailing person just like fools control the wise. The last declaration in this last stanza is that the speaker is exhausted of the imprisoned good attending chief ill.
The final two lines conclude the poem with an explanation to the above mentioned complaints of the speaker. In this line the speaker wishes death but he rejects that wish because that will snatch his love. At the end of this sonnet the Fair Youth is mentioned.
Sonnet 116 (Shakespeare)
Let me not to the marriage of true
minds
Admit
impediments. 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
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every
wand'ring bark,
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.
Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's
compass come;
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge
of doom.
If this be error and
upon me prov'd,
I never writ, nor no
man ever lov'd.
Meaning of Difficult Words:
True: trustworthy
Admit: confess
Impediment: obstacle
Alteration: Change
Bend: alter
Remove : pushing,
taking off
Bark: boat
Wandering: lost, straying from the path
Star:
pole star used for navigation in sea
Mark: goal
Height: altitude
Sickle: a farming tool with a half circle blade
Tempest: a
fierce turmoil
Compass: navigational
instrument for finding directions
Error: mistake, blunder
Brief: short
Writ: Court orders
Paraphrase of Sonnet
116
In the wedding of proper minds,
There is no impediment. Love is not
love
If
it changes when it changes or is missing.
In reality this is permanent at a
position,
And is firm to the tempests.
This works like a Pole Star for all
travelling ships,
Its value is mysterious us, but its
Its location is well-known.
Love is not Time’s slave, even if
beauty
Is chop down by the destruction of
time.
Love does not vary with the fastness
of Time,
However Love after everything else
remains till the last day.
If I am confirmed guilty in this
regard,
I will never write and no man will
love in life.
Summary: This Sonnet 166 is written
by William Shakespeare. In this sonnet the speaker says that nothing could get in the way with the unification
of two people who loves each other. He says that love which a change with
changing situation is not called love. Love doesn’t depend on Time, although
the blushing lips and cheeks of early life ultimately come within the compass
of Time’s sickle. Love doesn’t change but will continue until t continues until
the world ends.
In this Sonnet the speaker poses number
questions about what love is and what is not love. For the speaker
(traditionally assumed to be Shakespeare himself, and thus a man), The speaker starts
this argument from the starting lines of the poem that true love doesn't alter
with the passage of time but it goes on
with the same strength forever. In short this
sonnet tries to describe love, by telling both what it is and is not.
Theme:
This sonnet is
part of a series of love sonnets, usually supposed to be dealt with to a young
man. Their affiliation, as portrayed in the Sonnets as a
whole, is confused, full of faithlessness. The main
theme of this sonnet is love; which is expressed by the speaker expresses in
the ideal; never-ending, fading, or faltering. The idea that love is pure and eternal is the
main theme of this sonnet. The true love
does not change even if beauty loses charm with the passage of time. As true love has no concern with the physical
body of the lover. The speaker is so sure in his debate that he is willing
to make bet he says his statement will be incorrect, and then love itself is not
possible also no one has ever loved in this world. The speaker has not only described
love as something static but also an everlasting ultimate distant from the chaotic
truth of actual people's lives.
Analysis
and Explanation:
Stanza-1:
In this first stanza the speaker says about marriage of true lovers. He says
that the true love does not accept any type of hindrances and does not change
with the passage of time. He is not prepared to recognize any type of hindrance
the way of the union of true lovers. The
speaker says that true love does not change. A man’s love is not true if it
yield to the fads of a beloved who shits her love from his to someone else.
Stana-2:
In this stanza the speaker compares love with a fixed mark. True love is like a
fixed mark which stands firm against the attacks of storms and strong winds on
the sea, and is never shaken from its place. The speaker compares the northern
star which remains fixed in the sky at one place and which, in olden days, used
to serve as a guide to ships which may lose in the sea.
Stanza- 3:
In this stanza the speaker compares true
love time. He says that true love doe is never influenced by the time and its
tricks. Time destroys the beauty of his loved one; true love does not allow
even time to effect his love for his lover. The time can affect the different parts of his
body such as rosy lisps and cheeks as they may fade and lose their charm with
the passage of time. Love does not undergo any change with the passing of the
seconds, minutes, hours, weeks months, years into which time has been divided.
In the last two line of this sonnet the speaker says if
what he has said will be wrong, and also says that if his own love for his
beloved will be proved to be changeable. Then he will accept that whatever he
has written in his life that should be taken as unwritten; and also he assures
that no man has ever loved anyone truly.
