William Shakespeare

• Shakespeare’s Biography

• The Sonnet

• Paraphrase and Theme

• Similarities and Differences

• Devices in the Sonnets

Shakespeare’s Biography• At the age of 18, Shakespeare married the 26-year- old Anne Hathaway

( Sonnet 145 - "I hate from hate away she threw/And saved my life, saying 'not you” )

• He had affair with other women “Dark Lady” ( Sonnets 127–154 are dedicated to them. )

• He had sexual preference for young man. ( Sonnets 1–126 are for young man. )

Sonnet Sequences• “The Fair Youth” Sequences : sonnets 1–126

the “Fair Lord”

• "The Dark Lady“ Sequences : Sonnet 127-154

Black hair and dun coloured skin woman.

• "The Rival Poet“ Sequences : Sonnet 78-86

The Sonnet • Elizabethan or Shakespearean Sonnet

• inspired by the Petrarchan tradition

• 14 lines – 3 quatrains and a couplet

• rhyming a-b-a-b, c-d-c-d, e-f-e-f, g-g

Shakespearean VS Petrarchan Sonnet

• Shakespeare adopted the Petrarchan form

• wrote about feelings for the lady he loved.

• Petrarchan – described perfect women.

• Shakespearean – women with no perfect beauty.

BUT

Courtly Love Tradition 1. Love is viewed as torture, slavery or a hunt.

2. The lady is treated as a master or queen, a “cruel fair”.

3. The lady is praised for her virtue and her beauty

4. The lady has power in her gaze and can destroy or inspire with a look.

5. The poet will often make puns with his and his lady’s names.

6. The poet will often speak in apostrophe

7. The poet will engage in paradox

8. Hyperbole is used to express the poet’s emotions – exaggeration for effect.

SONNET 18 PARAPHRASE

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day? Shall I compare you to a summer's day?

Thou art more lovely and more temperate: You are more beautiful and gentle:

Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May, Stormy winds will shake the May flowers,

And summer's lease hath all too short a date; and summer lasts for too short of a time;

Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines, Sometimes the sun is too hot,

And often is his gold complexion dimmed, and many times it is overcast,

And every fair from fair sometime declines, and everything beautiful eventually decays,

By chance or nature's changing course untrimmed: either by some unforseen circumstance, or nature's course:

But thy eternal summer shall not fade, But your beauty will never fade,

Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st, or lose its inherent loveliness,

Nor shall Death brag thou wand’rest in his shade, even Death will not be able to claim you,

When in eternal lines to time thou grow’st. when in my eternal poetry you will grow.

So long as men can breathe or eyes can see, As long as there are people who see and breathe,

So long lives this, and this gives life to thee. So long will this poem live on, making you immortal.

SONNET 130 PARAPHRASE

My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun; My love's eyes are nothing like the sun,

Coral is far more red, than her lips’ red; coral is far redder than her lips;

If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun; if snow is white, her breasts are brownish gray;

If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head; if hairs are wires, than she has black wires growing from her head;

I have seen roses damask’d, red and white, I have seen roses mingled with red and white,

But no such roses see I in her cheeks; but I don’t see such colors on her cheeks;

And in some perfumes is there more delight there are perfumes that smell better

Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks; than my love’s horrid breath ;

I love to hear her speak, yet well I know I love to listen to her talk, though I know

That music hath a far more pleasing sound; music is much more pleasing to listen to;

I grant I never saw a goddess go - I 've never seen a goddess walk;

My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground.

But I know that my mistress walks only on the ground.

And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare And yet I think my love is as rare

As any she belied with false compare. as any woman praised and misrepresented by false comparisons.

ThemeSonnet 18

Appearances

Ars Longa, Vita Breve

(Arts is lone, life is short)

Sonnet 130Appearances

Unconditional Love

SIMILARITIES & DIFFERENCES

OF

SONNET 18 & SONNET 130

Similarities of SONNET 18 & SONNET 130

format (Shakespearean sonnet)

subject matter (Shakespeare’s lovers)

SONNET 18 >> "So long lives this, and this gives life to thee".

SONNET 130 >> "Yet by heaven I think my love as rare”

As any she belied with false compare".

•Reference to nature

E.g. SONNET 18 >> “buds of May” “the eye of heaven

(sun)” SONNET 130 >> “the sun”

“coral” “roses”

Universal theme (courtly love)

SONNET 18 SONNET 130Seriousness & romance of courtly

love sonnet

Parody of conventional flowery love

sonnet

Clichéd beauty

(of an idealized and perfect being )

Real beauty

(of an ordinary being )

Message discovered almost at the

end (the woman in the poem can do no

wrong in the eyes of her lover)

Message discovered almost at the end

(explanation of the woman’s flaws )

Shakespeare worships her as

something more than a human (he will

immortalize her through the sonnet)

The woman is obviously very human.

(“My mistress, when she walks, treads on the

ground.”)

Differences of SONNET 18 & SONNET 130

Devices in the Sonnets

SONNET 18

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day? (1)

Thou art more lovely and more temperate: (2)

Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May, (3)

And summer's lease hath all too short a date: (4) Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines, (5)

And often is his gold complexion dimm'd; (6)

Rhetoric question

Pun as it can mean “showing

moderation” and having mild

temperature.

Personification

And every fair from fair sometime declines, (7)

By chance, or nature's changing course, untrimm'd; (8)

But thy eternal summer shall not fade (9)

Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st; (10)

Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st in his shade, (11)

When in eternal lines to time thou grow'st; (12)

So long as men can breathe or eyes can see, (13)

So long lives this, and this gives life to thee. (14)

Describe the beloved in terms of nature.

pun

thou

time

RepetitionHyperbole

Sonnet 130

My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun; (1)

Coral is far more red than her lips' red; (2)

If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun; (3)

If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head. (4)

I have seen roses damask'd, red and white, (5)

But no such roses see in her cheeks; (6)

Negative simile

“X is not like Y”

Grayish brown

Parts of her body

1) Her eyes2) Her lips

3) Her breast4) Her hair

5) Her cheeks

And in some perfumes is there more delight (7)

Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks. (8)

I love to hear her speak, yet well I know (9)

That music hath a far more pleasing sound; (10)

I grant I never saw a goddess go; (11)

My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground: (12)

And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare (13)

As any she belied with false compare. (14)

Alliteration

Her voice

How she walks

Tones

• While Sonnet 18 is read, there is a tone of romance and seriousness, the tone in the first two and a half quatrains of Sonnet 130 is humorous.

• However, the couplet at the end is most sincere.

• Shakespeare is an admirer of beauty, flaws and nature.

• His ability to express emotional feelings contributes to why Shakespeare’s love sonnets have lived on through the centuries.

Referenceshttp://kellimcbride.com/pdf/2543_characteristics_sonnet.pdf

http://www.shakespeare-online.com/sonnets/

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/theatre/william-shakespeare/9758184/Has-Shakespeares-dark-lady-finally-been-revealed.html

http://www.shakespeares-sonnets.com/intro.php

http://www.william-shakespeare.info/william-shakespeare-biography-stratford.htm