In this essay, I will be showing a comparison between ‘Romeo and Juliet’ (Shakespeare), ‘To His Coy Mistress’ (Marvel) and ‘Sonnet 130’ (Also by Shakespeare). The first main comparison between these three texts is that they all show different types of love. ‘Romeo and Juliet’ is based on true love as both main characters fall in love with each other at first sight. Shakespeare shows their love by the soliloquy and the sonnet that he added to this text as the words and techniques used in them project a connection between Romeo and Juliet. ‘To His Coy Mistress’ shows an idea of a sexual and lustful love.
This sort of theme is seen in the Shakespearian sonnet 132 which I will now analyse. This sonnet is part of a “dark lady” series written by Shakespeare linking to the previously mentioned unreachable lady. In it we find classic examples of how a woman’s simple gaze can capture a man’s heart and dormant it so unintentionally, I presume. In the first line Shakespeare refers to “thine eyes [he] loves” and how it seems they “pity [him]”.This is a clear example of how the beauty of a woman’s eyes can seduce a man’s heart in believing he could venture into hers. This sort of pain is compared to death when he refers to the woman “[having] put on black” .This typifies the pain that men can feel and shows a somewhat excellent sensitive side that not only Shakespeare but other patriarchally born men of his time may have shared.
This theme is continued in Romeo and Juliet with love between the two characters but hatred between the Capulet and Montague families. This essay will explore how strong feelings are presented in Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet and Browning’s ‘My Last Duchess’ and ‘The Laboratory’. Varied examples of strong feelings are present in both of Browning’s poems by the effective use of a persona which allows us to hear the perspective of the character. In “My Last Duchess”, by speaking in the first person narrative as the Duke of Ferrara, a dramatic monologue more expected of a play, also seen in Romeo and Juliet, is delivered. Along with the frequent use of rhyming couplets and enjambment, this makes it clear that the Duke was a suspicious and dominant man to his dead wife and also shows his control.
Although, Shakespeare gets rid of that technicality by keeping “Twelfth Night” interesting with all the drama and confusion. One way in which William Shakespeare thinks that love is fickle is through Duke Orsino and Viola. “Why, so I do, the noblest that I have. O, when mine eyes did see Olivia first, Methought she purged the air of pestilence ! That instant when I’d turn’d into a hart; And my desires, like fell and cruel hounds, E’er since pursue me.” (Act 1, Scene 1 – pg.
An example from Shakespeare’s “Sonnet 20” follows: A woman's face with nature's own hand painted, Hast thou, the master mistress of my passion; A woman's gentle heart, but not acquainted With shifting change, as is false women's fashion: An eye more bright than theirs, less false in rolling, Gilding the object whereupon it gazeth; A man in hue all hues in his controlling, Which steals men's eyes and women's souls amazeth. And for a woman wert thou first created; Till Nature, as she wrought thee, fell a-doting, And by addition me of thee defeated, By adding one thing to my purpose nothing. But since she prick'd thee out for women's pleasure, Mine be thy love and thy love's use their treasure. (1-14) In this sonnet Shakespeare is referring to a man, having characteristics of a woman. He is describing how the man appears to him, physically and emotionally.
Prompt: In what ways does the last scene draw together the central concerns of the play? Shakespeare’s “Merchant of Venice” has long been revered for its clever and witty use of language but it is Shakespeare’s handling of the central concerns of the play that earn him the highest regard. The play delves somewhat playfully into issues of friendship, fortune, faithfulness, and family, while weaving in weightier matters such as hatred, greed and vengeance. While these issues are largely resolved in the trial scene, the contrasting values of love, generosity, and keeping ones word become the final messages of the play. The final scene set in serene Belmont, opens with Lorenzo and Jessica’s playful banter.
Such speculations—which reached their peak in critics and readers wedded to the sentimental Romantic insistence on an intimate tie between literary and historical “events”—are in one sense a tribute to the power of the sonnets. They are arguably the greatest collection of love poems in the language, and they provide a crucial test for the adequacy of both the love of poetry and the sense of the fascinating confusion that makes up human love. In a sense, the sonnets are as “dramatic” as any of Shakespeare’s plays inasmuch as their art is that of meditations on love, beauty, time, betrayal, insecurity, and joy. Each sonnet is like a little script, with (often powerful) directions for reading and enactment, with textual meanings that are not given but made anew in every performance, by different readers within their individual and social lives. What Sonnet 87 terms “misprision” may stand as the necessary process by which each sonnet is produced by each reader.
They can be that his stories are amazing, dark and deep. That he shaped the English language we know today, and also that his writing style itself was so beautiful that other writers can recognize that as well. The question I think needs to be answered is: Why is Shakespeare so important, and why is he still relevant today? Shakespeare genuinely tried to write for his audiences. He wanted the plot to strike them even if it didn’t sit well with them.
Shakespeare has more underlying themes in his verse such as the attack on the triumvirate, whereas Dryden focuses more on the love and drama of Antony and Cleopatra allowing the reader to be more involved in the drama instead of figuring out where the stories going next. While both texts ultimately speak of true love at its finest, the refinery of their characters is quite different. Dryden portrays an, although love stricken, heroic soldier never lacking in pride for his person, and on the other hand a love struck queen who is at the mercy of her brave hero. On the opposite end of the spectrum Shakespeare chooses the opposite route. His feminine lead is selfish and manipulative, although she ultimately loves Marc Antony, she is
to note the unconventional nature of the woman he is discussing. The ‘turn’ of the poem, in which Shakespeare’s attitude about the Dark Lady changes, occurs in the final rhyming couplet – “And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare / As any she belied with false compare” (lines 13-14). Here, he shows that, despite her strange appearance, he loves her anyway. Harryette Mullen’s sonnet “Dim Lady,” however, is a play on Shakespeare’s Sonnet 130, using much less formal language and structure. Instead of 14 lines of structured iambic pentameter, Mullen’s poem is 12 lines of no specific meter, acting more like informal prose than anything else.