Comparison Sonnets: Farewell to Love by Samuel Taylor Coleridge - CXXVIII by Anonymous Shakespearean Poet

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SONNET MODULE COURSEWORK ASSIGNMENT                          

COMPARE THE TREATMENT OF BETRAYAL OF LOVE IN TWO SONNETS.

Comparison Sonnets:  Farewell to Love by Samuel Taylor Coleridge

                                  CXXVIII by Anonymous Shakespearean Poet

Both the Shakespearean sonnets ‘Farewell to Love’ and ‘CXXXVIII’ show the betrayal of love, but in different aspects and ways.

‘Farewell to Love’ personifies love as love is being addressed.  Straight from the start of the sonnet, the reader can tell what the theme is about, with “Farewell, Sweet Love!”   CXXXVIII is similar, with the sentence in the first quatrain “I do believe her, though I know she lies”, where the reader can tell the sonnet is to do with lies and betrayal.

        Both the sonnets are Shakespearean and therefore have three quatrains and a couplet, giving a 4-4-4-2 pattern.  This style works well with these two sonnets as three ideas and distinct sections are brought out, but still all connecting with each other.  The final two lines give a new thought, triumphantly bringing the sonnet to an end.  

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This shows in ‘Farewell to Love’ where the first quatrain describes how he loved love more than a mother could love her child, and how love “shaped my thoughts” and emotions – whether he “sighed or smiled”.  The second quatrain changes the thought to how others feel differently and care about “wooing wealth” and pleasure, but he still cares most about love.  The third quatrain changes the thought yet again to describing why he feels this way about love when he “met the maid that realized your fair creations”(the beauty of love) and “caught your blindness” (love blindness).  Finally, the ...

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