The analysis of Sonnet 116 With poetic repetition and figurative language, Shakespeare in Sonnet 116 discusses and demonstrates his perception of love which is steadfast when confronting any difficulties. This sonnet is divided into four parts——three quatrains and a couplet employing the rhyme scheme ABAB CDCD EFEF GG. From the strong rhyme pattern and rhythm, we are directly aware of Shakespeare’s emotional praise for true love and his intensely criticism on false love. In the first quatrain, Shakespeare initially straightforward declares his stand on true love with a powerful negative sentence “Let me not to the marriage of true minds Admit impediments.” Then he employs parallelism to display how false love shows: every time when it confronts impediments or temptation, it will depart away. In the second quatrain, Shakespeare vivifies true love to make it pictorial through simile.
The beloved in Sonnet 130 is described in an unappealing manner, and yet, because of his honest depiction of her the poet-speaker considers his love to be true. The sonnet suggests true, authentic feelings can only be expressed when traditional conventions are set aside. This essay will examine the various technical features used by Shakespeare to emphasise this theme. The discussion will also consider the context in which the sonnet was written. It is immediately clear that Sonnet 130 challenges traditional concepts of romantic love.
Moreover, Shakespeare presents love as a nurturing and guiding influence. He writes "It is an ever fixed mark / That looks on tempests and is never shaken", thus likening love to a celestial presence, connoting guidance and goodness. Indeed, by using the metaphor of a "star to every wandering bark", the image of a star adds to the notion of a guiding presence, adding the idea that it gives light, and therefore hope and joy. Comparing a romantic relationship to a "wandering bark" and "tempests" shows Shakespeare's acknowledgement that relationships are not perfect and without their troubles, suggesting that exterior influences can steer them off course. The wholesomeness of love is also developed in the colour imagery of "rosy lips and cheeks", which suggest youth, beauty and
Shakespeare utilizes a new structure, through which the straightforward theme of his lover’s simplicity can be developed in the three quatrains and neatly concluded in the final couplet. Thus, Shakespeare is using all the techniques available, including the sonnet structure itself, to enhance his parody of the traditional Petrarchan sonnet typified by Sidney’s work. But Shakespeare ends the sonnet by proclaiming his love for his mistress despite her lack of adornment, so he does finally embrace the fundamental theme in Petrarch's sonnets: total and consuming love. One final note: To Elizabethan
It is clear appearance isn’t everything. In Sonnet 18 the speaker says that as long as the poem is still being read then the beauty of it still lives, which shows that poetry can preserve love and is immortal. Sonnet 147 is a poem that’s starts describing a beautiful person but ends but saying that she is basically the devil. This supports the poem’s theme: appearances isn’t everything. The speaker was deceived buy her beauty and soon came to realize that one doesn’t just judge someone by someone’s beauty and that person’s personality counts too.
Although simply written, this poem allows the reader to understand what real romantic love is. It is unchanging, unfading, never ending and is flawless. The courtly love, of Shakespeare’s time, was based upon the same ethics as the code of chivalry that was practiced during this time. C. S. Lewis wrote of courtly love in his book The Allegory of Love, saying that it was a, “"love of a highly specialized sort, whose characteristics may be enumerated as Humility, Courtesy, Adultery, and the Religion of Love" (p. 2). Just as knights pledged an oath to their King for a lifetime of servitude, the consort of courtly love also pledges their love for a lifetime to the object of their affection
Written almost as though it were part of a love letter, John Donne's poem 'A Valediction Forbidding Mourning' is his assurance of its recipient that the strength of their love is such that it cannot be broken by the distance separating them. Through metaphor and comparison, Donne does this by associating their love with many, seemingly ordinary objects such as a compass and gold, as well as other ideas including the deaths of "virtuous men". These images and the poem as a whole are a testament to Donne's opinion on the idea of spiritual love being greater than that of physical. The first two of nine stanzas are where Donne references "virtuous men", suggesting that the goodbyes between he and his supposed lover should be as uncomplaining and non-extravagant as the deaths of such men. He says here that to do otherwise would be "profanation of our joys".
“Let Me Not to the Marriage of True Minds” by William Shakespeare (1609) is a sonnet or poem about the hardships that true love faces throughout time. This poem seems to speak of how “true love” can overcome any obstacle that it may face and that it will not falter even through the years of life and hardships. Today it seems that the idea of “true” love is not what it was four hundred years ago. Being that I am currently attending a VCU class centered on Shakespeare and his life, I have learned that in his day people got married for love or property, but didn’t divorce due to hard times. Even though divorce was near impossible to get in that time, you hear stories of people loving one another through virtually anything.
Keat’s specific word choices also contribute to the theme of the poem that man wishes happiness would last forever. Keats describes the moving water as priest like, and the star as an "eremite". The narrator does not desire these qualities. He wants instead to be forever with his lover. The speaker uses the imagery of being "forever pillowed upon his fair loves breast" to portray his desire for an eternity with her.
The form of the poem suggests that despite the possibility of failure, the speaker is willing to persevere through any doubts held by their love interest with hopes a greater future. The poem acts as a mechanism for the speaker to assure their love interest that great love can be achieved and that they are well aware of the obstacles that must be overcome. “The Flea,” is telling the audience to seize the opportunity for love because it is not forever lasting thereby, illustrating a carpe diem themed poem. Three nonameters comprise the form of the poem each of which consists of identical end rhyme schemes, aabbccddd. By repeating this scheme in each nonameter, Donne exemplifies the persistence possessed by the speaker for love and that if initially denied; the speaker will continue to try to gain the desired love.