Examine Shakespeare’s representation of love in at least two sonnets you have studied

"Love alters not with his breeze houres and weeks,

But beares it out even to the edge of doome."

This depicts that love does not change over time, it is more positive than time, and can defeat time.

It also says in "Let me not.."

"If this be error upon me proved,

I never writ, nor no man ever loved."

This quote is hyperbole. He is saying that if he is not in love and always will be with this person then he never writ and no one else ever loved. Both these quotes show that in both sonnets, they talk of love defeating time. In the first one his love will live on because people will read his poem and know about his love as long as there are people to read the poem and in the second, that the love will last forever and if it won't then no one else ever loved.

Compared with the Shakespearean sonnets, the sonnet by Millay talks of how she once loved but now those feelings do not remain.

"I only know what summer sang in me

A little while, that in me sings no more"

This quote shows that this sonnet talks of quite a different view of love. This quote depicts how she once loved but she no longer has that feeling but in Shakespeare's sonnets he talks of love that will last forever.

The effect of Shakespeare's sonnets is that he is happily in love. The way he talks of the women's beauty as if it is the most precious in the whole world makes the sonnet appear to be a rejoicing, happy sonnet.

"Sometime to hot the eye of heaven shines,

And often is his gold complexion dim'd"

This depicts how the summer's day will not last but the woman he loves beauty is superior to the summer's day and will last forever.

The Petrarchan sonnet is again quite the opposite. This poem is not talking of someone they love or some ones beauty, but rather of how they have once loved but now do not even remember that feeling and no longer feel that way about any of the people they loved. It is a very woeful sonnet.

A method of writing that both writers use is personification. Shakespeare talks of "the eye of heaven". This personification depicts the sun as the eye of heaven looking down on the earth. This is affective as it makes you think of the sky's eye being the sun.

Millay talks of,

"For unremembered lads that not again

Will turn to me at midnight with a cry"

I see this as personification because she is talking about a memory that turns to her and cries, a human action. Yet she will not remember them because for them she has no feelings remaining.

Most sonnets were written intentionally to be songs so the strong sense of rhythm could be down to this and also the iambic pentameter throughout the sonnets. Shakespeare's sonnets follow the pattern almost exactly throughout and Millay's sonnet also follows the pattern with few anomalies.

Shakespeare's sonnets follow the distinct sonnet format; the three quatrains adding a new point to the argument, then a rhyming couplet resolving the problem. With the Petrarchan sonnet, it follows a different rhyming scheme, still with the fourteen lines but with an octet conveying the mood and then a sestet concluding the mood.

In Millay's sonnet she talks of how she does not think of those she once loved and the sonnet seems very sombre, and in the sestet she concludes that the reason for this is because she does not love them any more as their love has come and gone and she has no reason to think about them therefore.

"I only know that summer sang in me

A little while, that in me sings no more"

The language used by Shakespeare is a lot more difficult to understand than the language used by Millay through out the sonnet. Millay's language is a lot more modern for example the use of the word 'lads'. This is very colloquial. Shakespeare does not use language like this, and the way he forms his sentences is much more complex.

The representation that Shakespeare has of love in these two poems is of something that is wonderful and will defeat time, whereas Millay's Petrarchan sonnet talks of love that is no longer there and is a quite melancholy poem that differs in context use of language and structure.

Louise Davidson