Shakespeare - still relevant today

For example, Shakespeare uses metaphorical comparison to show the guiding, stable and everlasting nature of love. This is evident in Sonnet 116, where Shakespeare talks of love: “It is the star to every wandering bark”. Shakespeare is suggesting that Love is like a guiding star in the sky, because a “bark” is a ship. In Shakespeare’s time stars were used for navigation at sea, known as celestial navigation. Shakespeare is saying that love is like a star to a wandering bark that is fixed in the sky. It can be relied upon for guidance, It lasts forever, and it is not effected by earthly problems such as storms (“That looks on tempests and is never shaken”). The message is that true love is unchanging and everlasting, and many people can relate to this message today.

Shakespeare uses repetition and allusions to the Episcopal book to describe to the reader the nature of love. In the first two lines of Sonnet 116 Shakespeare asks the reader to “Let me not to the marriage of true minds/ Admit impediments”.  In the Episcopal book it is stated “... if either of you do know any impediment why you may not be lawfully joined together in matrimony, that ye confess it”. Shakespeare is referring to this to emphasize the unity of two people through their sharing of love for each other. Also, the line “or bends with the remover to remove” implies that true love continues even when it is not shared. In other words, Shakespeare is saying that love is both unconditional and eternal.

Shakespeare uses metaphor to describe the finality of death. This is evident in Sonnet 73, where Shakespeare uses “black night” as a metaphor for death. In line 4, “where late the sweet birds sang” Shakespeare uses the birds as a metaphor for life and youth. Life is full of vitality and death is nothingness. By using the metaphors for life and death, Shakespeare compares the vitality, colour and youth of life with the finality, emptiness and darkness of death. Death “seals up all in rest”.

Shakespeare uses rhetorical question to make the reader aware of the similarities between the beauty of a summer’s day and the person of his affection. This is evident in the opening line of sonnet 18, “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?” Shakespeare uses this technique to develop his conceit throughout the sonnet.

For contemporary audiences love, beauty and death are concepts that people have to face and live with today. Shakespeare’s sonnets help us understand these concepts. People can still relate to the beauty of a summers day, and the darkness and emptiness of death. Death is still feared, and love and beauty are still desired. This is why the sonnets are still relevant today.