Whenever Shakespear wrote “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?” he was married and had undoubtedly experienced love. He may have been expressing his own personal views of love in this poem. However Emily Bronte wasn’t specking for herself when she wrote “Remembrance” we have no reason to believe that she was ever in any serious relationships as she never married. However, “Remembrance” is genuine in its description of grief, drawn from Bronte’s own experience of losing close members of the family. I find that the Archaic language she uses adds to the depressing effect Emily Bronte she creates and am put off by the strict structure Shakespear uses.
“Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?” has a happy and cheerful tone to it. Shakespear creates this effect by using upbeat language and an upbeat and happy rhythm in this poem. To add to his happy attitude he describes all the faults in a summer’s day, saying his lover is more perfect that a summer’s day. Using a rhetorical question at the start of the poem lifts the mood when he answers it himself,
“Thou art more lovely and more temperate”
We know from this moment on that Shakespear will praise his lover throughout his poem and criticise a summer’s day. Probably the most uplifting theme in this poem is the though of eternal life,
“So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this give life to thee.”
Although I personally wouldn’t find this romantic, it does show that Shakespear was a romantic. He uses romantic notions like everlasting love, beauty, and life to create a loving atmosphere.
“Remembrance” is the opposite. From the start we know this poem isn’t happy or joyful in any way, with the opening line,
“Cold in the earth”
These depressing first words set the tone for the rest of the poem. Emily Bronte uses repetition of sad and dreary words to show the depression the speaker is experiencing, “Far, far” this is repeated to emphasise how cut off she feels from her loved one. “Cold in the earth” is also repeated as it shows her feelings towards her lovers whereabouts now. In the last two stanzas the tone shifts form the memory of her love and the past to the present and how she had to “wean” her young soul from “yearning” after him. How she describes herself as,
“Dare not indulge in Memory’s rapturous pain;”
This shows her determination and is truly inspiring. The language also changes in this turn around, it uses stronger language, “Sternly denied” and ending the poem with a rhetorical question leaves the reader with thoughts of their own,
“Once drinking deep of that divinest anguish,
How could I seek the empty world again?”
In “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?” Shakespear uses imagery to show the imperfections of a summer’s day, and emphasise the perfections of his lover.
“Rough winds do shake the darling buds or May,”
Here we imagine one of the many imperfections, listed by Shakespear, of the summer breezes blowing on the delicate flowers.
I think that Emily Bronte uses imagery in a more effective way,
“Now, when alone, do my thoughts no longer hover
Over the mountains, on that northern shore”
This piece of imagery shows us how cut off from real life Emily Bronte felt when she let herself think of dwell over her loss. She describes the days of being with her partner as “the days of golden dreams” which shows us that they were possibly the happiest days of her life and increase the depressing mood to an all time low.
In “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?” the rhythm is so upbeat and uplifting that Shakespear’s use of it to describe his happiness must touch you somehow. He makes the poem short and sweet so that it doesn’t drag on but creates a more loving atmosphere when being read aloud. However the rhythm in “Remembrance” is slow and depressing and the length of the poem and detail add to the sadness
The rhyme scheme in “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?” doesn’t appeal to me, the strict structure and wording makes me feel distant as it isn’t as fluent as it could be. The alternate line rhyme for “Remembrance” creates a depressing effect as it resembles a sombre hyme.
In conclusion I believe that the deep emotional thoughts produced in “Remembrance” are more convincing than the strict structure and unrealistic views on love portrayed in “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?” I believe that when Shakespear wrote this he must have been crazily and deeply in love, which I think gives the wrong idea for love. He makes it seem all happy and everlasting. I prefer Emily Bronte’s strong character who was able to overcome a love, probably just as deep as Shakespear’s, who was cruelly torn away.
