English Literature II

Universidad Pedagógica Nacional

Essay of Poetry 1. G2

Prof. Enrique Hoyos Olier.

Camila Andrea Roa Rodríguez.

Renacentist Attitude inside Sonnet 35 William Shakespeare.

In English Literature Shakespeare’s works has an important role between

many literary genres. In the case of poetry, Sonnets are the most famous

poetical structures particularly: Shakespearean sonnets. Shakespeare

composed around of 154 Sonnets between the period of 1592 and 1598, few of

them are: Sonnet 18, Sonnet 116, and Sonnet 73. Shakespeare’s Sonnets have

become the most important Renacentist expressions in English Literature.

Sonnet 35 is composed for 3 stanzas and 1 couplet, each stanza has 4 lines

(quatrains) and last couplet has 2 lines. Sonnet 35 has a rhyme of ABAB,

CDCD, EFEF and GG also it has a pentameter an iambic verses. It has long

lines, so the rhythm of this poem is slowly. At the moment to analyze each

line, it is possible to see how author uses punctuation marks as comas,

semicolon and colon to mark the slow and long rhythm. In some these marks

are used some in lines to emphasize and to contrast, some metaphorical

elements along the poem.

We can see this use of punctuation marks to support the intentional sense

along this Sonnet. At first stanza we found:

No more grieved at that which thou hast done:

Roses have thorns, and silver fountains mud,

Clouds and eclipses stain both moon and sun,

And loathsome canker lives in sweetest bud.

As we can see the first punctuation mark is a colon, which is used to make a

pause with the objective to give metaphorical elements that built in this case

the arguments and examples to understand the attitude’s author in first line:

Do not be grieved of what you have done. After this author used comas to

show each nature element as a construction who is not perfect but it has an

own beauty: Roses, Eclipses.

In the second stanza the author begins using the same resource, but in this case

it is about men and faults. Faults in this case are something inherent at Human

Being nature; also he is talking about himself and his experience along the

second stanza. In the last line of second stanza the use of semicolon gives the

sense of third stanza where there is a change of tone.

Third stanza is based on duality marked in two voices, the first one when

authors say:

For to thy sensual fault I bring in sense---

Thy adverse party is thy advocate---

In these lines we can see how the speaker is referring to faults as something

who is in other side, after that we can see how he talks about him again and

his feelings who are in constant war. Duality.

Couplet as a majority of Shakespeare’s sonnets is a kind of consequence or

conclusion about the situation of sonnet. In this case couplets lines ends

recognizing the two roles (duality) along the sonnet as oneself:

That I an accessory needs must be

To that sweet thief which sourly robs from me.

If we take account the Renacentist spirit, where Human Life passes on the

religious sense, to become life to live: Carpe Diem intention, take a place in

Shakespeare’s poetry. In this case, we can see in Sonnet 35 how Shakespeare

describes the behavior of Human Being as something with many faults but

itself, is a natural way to be in this world.

He uses many elements to make allusion to things that are beautiful their self

despite faults; they do not change their role in world. The first line No more

grieved at that which thou hast done, describes attitude of Renacentist. There

is no time to regret. Faults are included in nature’s life. This is the natural

course of life.

We cannot separate in dualities something that is every moment include in

Human life. Sonnet 35 is not a justification of mistakes, but it denotes

Shakespeare’s attitude about of life, as something that in some cases we

cannot alter it.