Compare the treatment of time in Bysshe Shelley's "Ozymandias", Shakespeare's Sonnet LXV "Since Brass nor Stone", Shakespeare's Sonnet II "When Forty Winters", Robert Herrick's "To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time".

"Compare the Treatment of time In the Selection of poems you have Read" The four poems I will be doing are: Bysshe Shelley's "Ozymandias" Shakespeare's Sonnet LXV "Since Brass nor Stone" Shakespeare's Sonnet II "When Forty Winters" Robert Herrick's "To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time" All of these poets talk about the destructive power of time. There are two very different ways that you can look at the destructive power of time. One is where time can mature and enrich people or wine, generally a good view of time. The other is where time destroys everything in its path, like the fall of an empire. All of the poems we have studied focus on the destructive power of time. I believe that the passage of time is a destructive force and that the poems using that view are better as they are more powerful and display strong images about time. Even though a child will grow and mature they will die in the end like everything in the world. So I believe "There is no defence against time's scythe." In "Ozymandias" Shelley writes ironically about how time can ruin the greatest men in their day. It talks about a ruined statue of an ancient ruler of an "ancient" city. This means that time has destroyed his city and his entire empire has been reduced to "lone and level sands" that "stretch far away." Shelley uses alliteration here to speed up this line and it makes you read it

  • Word count: 1335
  • Level: GCSE
  • Subject: English
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Shylock: Villain or Victim

Shylock: villain or victim? Shylock is a controversial character as he has aspects of both victim and villain. Audiences over four hundred years have responded both negatively and personally to him, although he only appears in 5 scenes he has a very strong personality. Shakespeare wrote the merchant of Venice in 1596. The Elizabethans attitude towards the Jews was negative because most Elizabethans are Christians so they would blame Jews for the death of Jesus. From when that happened Jews were classed as second class citizens. Even though Shylock is portrayed as a villain he can also be seen as a victim in some scenes. In Act 1 Scene 3 Shylock repeats what Antonio has said to him before 'You call me misbeliever, cut-throat dog, and spit upon my Jewish gabardine' .This shows that Shylock has been a victim of physical and verbal abuse by Antonio. After the holocaust many people felt sympathy for the Jews as most people's families were brutally murdered. In Act 1 Scene 3 we meet Shylock for the first time. He and Bassanio are discussing a loan that Shylock may make to Antonio ,Shylock says 'Antonio is a good man' When Shylock says this Bassanio's and Shylock have opposite ideas of good. Bassanio's way of good is to help people when they need it, but Shylock's way of good is when he is making interest off of his loans to people. When Bassanio says 'If it please you to dine

  • Word count: 1295
  • Level: GCSE
  • Subject: English
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Love in Romeo and Juliet and Sonnets 18, 29 and 130.

Shakespeare is reputed to be one of the most eloquent and influential writer, poet, actor and playwright in English Literature. Born in 1564 in Stratford-upon-Avon to John and Mary Shakespeare, Shakespeare was part of a successful middle class family. He grew up in a time where poetry and acting was at an all-time high which helped towards him leading a very successful profession. Throughout his career, he wrote 36 plays and 154 sonnets, four of which will be delved into in this essay. These four are his play “Romeo and Juliet” and sonnets “18, 29 and 130”. These works of art are a few examples of how Shakespeare uses his clever wit, brilliant mind and his deep understanding of human emotions to show the feelings of romantic love, requited and unrequited. These texts also portray Shakespeare's mastery over the English language, successfully stirring deep emotions within the reader through his subtle manipulation of language, grammar and structure. This essay will delve into how romantic love is presented throughout the four writings and will compare how it is presented to the reader. Firstly, Shakespeare’s play, Romeo and Juliet, is one of the most famous romantic tragedy stories in English Literature. A story with love being the most influential and imperative theme, a force of nature that supersedes all other values and emotions. The plot revolves around to

  • Word count: 2304
  • Level: GCSE
  • Subject: English
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Compare and contrast the two sonnets "Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?" and "Sonnet 130".

Compare and contrast the two sonnets "Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?" and "Sonnet 130" This essay is based on two sonnets, "Shall I compare thee to a summer's day" and "Sonnet 130", both of which are written by William Shakespeare. Although the poems are different to each other, they both come across as having the same meaning. "Shall I compare thee to a summer's day" is a traditional, romantic love poem of the seventeenth century. The purpose behind the poem is to flatter women. In the poem, Shakespeare compares his love to a summer's day. The way he does this is by highlighting all the negative points about summer and saying that she is much better. He beguiles her into thinking that in comparison to a day of summer she is much more extravagant. On the other hand "Sonnet 130" contradicts this poem. In "Sonnet 130" Shakespeare mentions all the bad points about his mistress in comparison with the small beauties in the world. This may sound as though he is unromantic towards his mistress, but he says that despite his mistress not being perfect, he still loves her as she is 'rare'. In this poem he is very critical towards other sonnets, for being over exaggerated and unrealistic to flatter women, as he feels it doesn't do women any justice. The irony about this is that, "Shall I compare thee..." is written by Shakespeare in a traditional form as well as

  • Word count: 2617
  • Level: GCSE
  • Subject: English
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How do Barret Browning and Wordsworth use the sonnet form to portray strong feelings and emotions?

How do Barret Browning and Wordsworth use the sonnet form to portray strong feelings and emotions? A sonnet is a poem of fourteen lines. They provide a strict structure. They have a strict rhyming pattern and are usually written in iambic pentameter. There are two types of sonnets, Petrachan and Shakespearean. They both have slightly different rhyming patterns from each other. Both poems, 'Sonnets from the Portuguese XLIII' and 'Composed upon Westminster Bridge' are Petrachan sonnets. The rhyming structure of a Petrachan sonnet is ABBA ABBA CDCDCD, an octet and a sestet. They are also written in iambic pentameter. This makes the structure restricted. The poets would have had to be selective in choosing which feelings and emotions are shown in the poem. So only the important ones come through. The sonnets were written in different time eras. Wordsworth wrote 'Composed upon Westminster Bridge' in the Romantic era. At that time, people were naturalistic. This could explain why his poem has so much nature in it. So much, that there seems to be an absence of humanity. 'In the smokeless air.' Wordsworth's feelings and emotions are expressed in conjunction with nature. He blends images of the city and his own reactions to them in one whole. 'Earth has not anything to show more fair'. He effortlessly shifts from nature to structure without losing the central theme

  • Word count: 494
  • Level: GCSE
  • Subject: English
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Examine the literary tradition of sonnet writing with particular reference to the sonnets of William Shakespeare.

Examine the literary tradition of sonnet writing with particular reference to the sonnets of William Shakespeare. Introduction Sonnets are poems which have been written for many centuries by the like of William Shakespeare, William Wordsworth and John Milton amongst many others. Although each sonnet is fourteen lines long there are still at least two categories into which a sonnet can fall. The first is the Shakespearean, Elizabethan or English sonnet. These sonnets were started in the Elizabethan period by, most notably, William Shakespeare who wrote over one hundred and fifty sonnets. The form is still used today, thanks to the likes of Claude McKay. The Shakespearean sonnet is composed of three quatrains and ends with a rhyming couplet. The traditional rhyme scheme for a Shakespearean sonnet is; a, b, a, b, c, d, c, d, e, f, e, f, g, g. The metre in a Shakespearean sonnet is usually iambic pentameter (10 syllables per line). The main topic in a Shakespearean sonnet is love, as William Shakespeare, Sidney and Spencer wrote. But it can also be used to show other emotions. For example, Claude McKay used the Shakespearean sonnet to illustrate what the black people of his time were going through in "If We Must Die" and "The Lynching". The other category into which a sonnet can fall is the Petrarchan or Italian sonnet. These were also written in the Elizabethan era, but

  • Word count: 2013
  • Level: GCSE
  • Subject: English
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explore the ways these poets examine racism in thei culture

Explore the ways these poets examine racism in their culture We have been introduced to a selection of American poetry all to do with racism. In this essay I am going to look at the ways that two poets see racism in their culture. The poems that I have chosen to write about are 'Strange Fruit' by Abel Meeropol and 'I Too' by Langston Hughes. Abel Meeropol was a Jewish teacher living in the Bronx. He wrote Strange Fruit in 1938, after seeing a photograph of two men being lynched. Strange fruit refers to the bodies of the black people hanging from the trees. This isn't obvious in the first line, however in the second line where it says 'Blood on the leaves and blood at the root' it becomes obvious that it is about lynching. In the second stanza, Meeropol contrasts nature with reality as he writes: 'Pastoral scenes of the gallant South, The bulging eyes and the twisted mouth' People who were unaware of lynching and the dreadful way that black people were treated might of imagined South America as an idealized place. By creating such gruesome visual imagery, Meeropol makes it a really successful contrast. He does this again in the second couplet of the stanza as he writes: 'Scent of magnolias, sweet and fresh, Then the sudden smell of burning flesh' This contrast is even more dramatic than the first one as not only does it use visual imagery, it makes you imagine the

  • Word count: 682
  • Level: GCSE
  • Subject: English
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Wirte a Comparative Essay On ‘the Portuguese Sonnet’ By Elizabeh Barret Browning, ‘Sonnet 130’ By William Shakespeare and the ‘Glasgow Sonnet’ By Edwin Morgan

WIRTE A COMPARATIVE ESSAY ON 'THE PORTUGUESE SONNET' BY ELIZABEH BARRET BROWNING, 'SONNET 130' BY WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE AND THE 'GLASGOW SONNET' BY EDWIN MORGAN These 3 sonnets; 'the Portuguese Sonnet', 'Sonnet 130' and 'the Glasgow Sonnet' all have different themes and different framework. Each sonnet has a particular format it has to stick to, this makes writing them very demanding. 'Sonnet 130' by William Shakespeare is all about love, but not in the usual sense. In this Sonnet Shakespeare speaks of his love in a manure not used by most poets. This sonnet isn't all roses and love hearts, his vision of love is more real, he describes his love exactly how she is, flawed. 'If snow be white why then her breasts are dull.' In Shakespearian times women were supposed to have snow-white skin and breasts, but his love doesn't have white skin, her breasts are dull. Most poets wouldn't say this about their love, or even describe somebody in a poem like this, but Shakespeare did. As this is how he saw his love, with all of her physical flaws, but he still loved her. Another example of this is 'in some perfume there is more delight then in the breath that from my mistress reeks'. This quotation means her breath isn't as sweet as perfume, but it reeks. This isn't something you would say to a lover, he was using it as a statement, that love isn't always with the most attractive person,

  • Word count: 815
  • Level: GCSE
  • Subject: English
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What do we learn about life and death from the sonnets of the Elizabethen age ?

What do we learn about life and death from the sonnets of the Elizabethen age ? In the 16 th and 17 th centuary a sonnet would consider certain subject matter.The Elizabethen sonnets would consider certain subject matter.These sonnets had three main concerns,the brevity of life,The transience of beauty and the inevitability of mortality Many Elizabethens were acutely aware of the beauty of life.Shakespeare knew all about the tragedy of death as all his brothers and sisters died early.In Elizabethen times death was everywhere.Sonnets were very fashionable in the Elizabethen era.In this essay I will look at four Elizabethen sonnets and try to consider what inspired to poet to write it. The first sonnet is 'A blast of wind,A momentary breath,It was written by Barnabe Barnes in 595.It is about life and death and that how life is transient and inexorable.It uses phrases that shows the breivity of life such as ''A morning dew pearling the grass beneath'' This creates the image of grass in the early morning covered with dew.When the sun rises the dew will evaporate and be gone forever.Barnabe is saying that we humans are very much like dew.One day we will also die away helplessly and ber gone forever.To emphasise the poems meaning he uses a powerful juxtaposition and the end . ''We are soon born to die,soon florishing to fade'' This means as soon as

  • Word count: 1230
  • Level: GCSE
  • Subject: English
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Shakespeare Essay

Shakespeare wrote 125 sonnets in his lifetime, they were written between 1594 and 1597. They were dedicated to a man whom he calls "fair boy" in his sonnets and a woman "my mistress". Shakespeare's sonnets were published in 1609. The sonnets are mostly full of images of a romantic nature about love and lust. Sonnets come in two main forms: - "The Petrarchan" which originated in Italy and "Shakespearean" which is the English form. Most sonnets written by Shakespeare were in the Shakespearean form of three quatrains, each rhymed differently, with an independently rhyming couplet at the end. Each line is made up of ten syllables. In this essay it is necessary to look at sonnets 18 and 130, both written for different people, one for a man and one for a woman, and look and the differences between them. Sonnet 18 follows the Shakespearean form. In this poem he shows his love for a man. This man's identity is not known, but it is rumoured to be the Earl of Southampton, these are rumours so we don't really know if that's true. Shakespeare's first 26 sonnets are clearly written to a man. In one of his sonnets, sonnet 20, he describes his love for a man as non-sexual. But he clearly admires him very much. I think this because he doesn't say "I love you" or anything that suggests that he loves him but phrases such as "nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st; Nor shall death brag

  • Word count: 1315
  • Level: GCSE
  • Subject: English
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