Sonnet 72 Essay -- essays research papers

William Shakespeare Sonnet 18 Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day? a Thou art more lovely and more temperate: b Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May, a And summer’s lease hath all too short a date: b Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines c And often is his gold complexion dimmed, d And every fair from fair sometimes declines, c By chance, or nature’s changing course, untrimmed; d But thy eternal summer shall not fade, e Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st; f Nor shall death brag thou wander’st in his shade, e When in eternal lines to time thou grow’st: f So long as man can breathe, or eyes can see, g So long lives this and this gives life to thee g 3 Sentences: 1st sentence: line 1 2nd sentence: lines 2 - 8 3rd sentence: lines 9 - 14 This is a Shakespearean sonnet with no characteristics of a Petrarchan sonnet. GLOSSARY Temperate moderate Darling very dear Lease the term during which possession is guaranteed Date the time during which something lasts Complexion colour, visible aspect, appearance To decline to diminish, decrease, deteriorate Untrimmed not carefully or neatly arranged or attired Fair beauty, fairness, good looks Eternal infinite in past and future duration, without beginning or end To brag to declare or assert boastfully ‘SHALL I COMPARE THEE TO A SUMMER’S DA... ...tent iambic pentameter, encapsulates the idea of eternal life through versification. The meter is iambic pentameter and the rhythm is fairly regular throughout the sonnet. However, in a number of lines there are spondaic feet, used to emphasise threats to the beauty and the idea of eternity. Clear examples of this are the "Rough winds" in line 3 and the "death" that will not "brag" in line 11. In the latter example the threat of death is reinforced by the assonance between the words "death" and "brag". Line 9 is an interesting line as regards the rhythm. For the last two feet reinforce the turn, introduced by the "But". A regular rhythm would have a stress on "shall", followed by an unstressed "not". However, the opposite is true. This clearly adds to the contrasting quality of this line: after two regular iambic pentameters the stress on the "not" following the introductory "But" leaves no doubt about the turn the reader witnesses in this line. A truly beautiful e xample of a Shakespearean turn.