In the second verse he allows the poem to become livelier in parts by using words such as ‘pulse’, ‘happy’, ‘laughter’ and ‘friends’ but calms it again with ‘eternal’ and ‘heaven’. The poem begins heroically and patriotically, plunging in with the powerful topic of death but not allowing it to cast a shadow of darkness and depression over the poem and ends peacefully with the word ‘heaven’. This sums up the nature of the poem. There are not a lot of literary devices used, there is some alliteration such as ‘sights and sounds’ and ‘laughter, learnt’ in line thirteen; there is also some repetition of words which stress the theme and mood of the poem, examples being ‘rich’ in line four and ‘England’ is repeated through out the poem.
‘ Shall I compare thee to a summers day…’ is a well-known sonnet by William Shakespeare in which he declares his love for an unknown person. The first line is a question and the rest of the poem is an answer to that question. He starts of by asking if he should compare her to a summers day but in the second line he says that she is better than that, in the next six lines he explains why that is; that summer has its faults and is not always as lovely as her as there are sometimes ‘rough winds’ or the sun goes in and that summer will fluctuate and end. Shakespeare tends to emphasise Summer’s negative aspects and also dwell on the woman’s positive talents, therefore making the women appear to be far more lovely than Summer. In the next four lines he explains that she is more lovely than summer because she will not age or die because her beauty is trapped in the sonnet. The last two lines mean that as long as the poem exists then she will live on.
This is a very romantic poem and like ‘The Soldier’ it is in iambic pentameter. Like many of Shakespeare’s sonnets, this one has a theme about the cruelty of time and how the person who inspired him was given immortality because they were in his poetry. This particular sonnet contains quite a lot of literary devices, there is some personification of the sun, for example ‘eye of heaven’ and of death; the first line is a simile as he is asking whether she is like a summers day. The last two lines are a heroic couplet and contain some repetition of ‘So long’. The mood of the poem is romantic and peaceful, Shakespeare does not use strong language but instead employs rich, peaceful words when appropriate; the words ‘darling buds’ in the third line gives a romantic and beautiful feel to the poem, words such as ‘heaven’, ‘eternal’ and ‘gold’ also create a luxuriant atmosphere. In the third quatrain, Shakespeare allows the sonnet to be positive about her, praising her rather than be negative about summer. He uses the phrase ‘Nor shall death brag thou wandr’st in his shade’, I find the use of the word ‘brag’ interesting in this context as it is not a strong word but appears to be in this poem, this is probably because it has it quite a harsh sound which is out of place with the rest of the poem; it also would not normally be associated with death however bragging is not a pleasant thing and by saying that death would normally brag about the fact that he had killed someone paints a picture that death is very horrible.
The theme of sonnet 116, ‘Let me not …’ is the nature of love and the effects of the passing of time. In this sonnet Shakespeare is trying to express what love is like, how it acts and how he perceives it to be.
The first phrase ‘Let me not to the marriage of true mindes admit impediments’ means that when two people love each other there are no obstacles for them. He goes on to say in the second, third and fourth line that love stays the same no matter what and if it changes when confronted by a problem then it was never true love. The next two lines develop this idea further by saying that love can be tested by the strongest ‘tempests’ (challenges) and emerge unflustered. Line seven, ‘It is a star to every wandering barke’ means that love is the guide to all lost and wandering people as a star is to a sailing ship; it is their anchor and point of stability and gives a sense of direction to those who are in love. Line eight means that loves worth is immeasurable, only the givers height can be measured and not the amount of love given. The two lines speak about how true love doesn’t change; it is independent like time although youth and beauty are harvested by time. The next two lines mean that love goes on even after death; the word ‘doom’ gives a negative image to the poem. The last two lines ‘If this be error and upon me prov’d I never writ, nor no man ever loved’ are heroic couplets and mean that if what Shakespeare has said in the sonnet is false then he never wrote this and no one ever loved, thus saying that what he has said is true because men have loved and he certainly wrote the poem. The tone of the poem is sad, it is saying that one can remove their love but if someone else removes theirs it does not remove yours. There is some literary devices used in this poem, in the first line there is alliteration with the letter ‘m’, the word ‘tempest’ is a metaphor and there is personification of time and love in the poem.
There are links between each poem, however all three have some things in common; they all contain pastoral and natural beauty rather than industrial scenes, they are all about love, time and death are also mentioned in each sonnet, more in some than in others. The links between ‘the Soldier’ and ‘Shall I compare thee…’ are mainly that they are both about a love affair between two people. In both there is personification, of England in Brookes and summer in Shakespeare, they also both talk about the sun and heaven and their lover being eternal. The links between ‘The Solider and ‘Let me not..’ are that there is an eternal theme, they have time in common. Love is the main theme in both and there is personification of England and Love. In ‘Let me not …’ there is a star mentioned which guides ships, in ‘The Soldier’ England is the guiding star to the soldier who has left home and is travelling away. In ‘Let me not…’ love is given and received, in ‘The Soldier’ England gave him something and by making a part of a foreign land English he is giving something back.
Word Count: 1356