Sonnet 18 - An Analysis

1289 Words6 Pages
Shakespeare 18. sonnet analysis This sonnet, just like the others, is a beautiful one as is costumany in Shakespeare’s poetry. Just as I mentioned, this is a sonnet, because it has 14 lines, and also the rhythm and rhyme structure prove it, but I will talk about it later. Shakespeare’s sonnets can be divided in to three parts: 1-17 convincing his friend (The Fair Youth) to marry , 18-126 sonnets about beauty and youth, 126-152 sonnets to the the Dark Lady. So as we can see it, this poem is in the second section. And now lets see the sonnet in details. The first thing that I wish to look at is the structure of the poem. As I mantioned in the introduction, is that the poem has 14 lines. Now see the rythm. For example here is the first line: ,, Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?” As we analyse it, we can see, that it has been written in iambic pentameter, as the sonnets usually are. The more special thing about Shakespeare’s sonnets is the rhyme. There are 3 kinds of typical rhyme chemes in sonnet writing. The first is the Petrachian (italian), and Rhyme schame is the following: abbabba (8), cdecde, cddcdd (6). The second (and that is what we are going to talk about) is the Shakespearian (English) is looks like this: abab, cdcd, efef, gg. And the next one, that has been groven out of Shakesepeare’s structure is the Spenserian, and here it is: abab, bcbc, cdcd, ee. In the followings ill prove that this poem is Shakesperian. Fort he first time, Shakespeare wrote it, and also I’ll write down the last words of each line, and check the endings: day (a), temperate (b), may (a), date (b), shines (c), dimm’d (d), declines (c), untrimm’d (d), fade (e), owest (f), shade (e), growest (f), see (g), thee (g). And now let’s check the poetic devices that Shakespeare uses to describe the Fair Youth. In the first

More about Sonnet 18 - An Analysis

Open Document