William Shakespeare - Sonnet 130
Natalie Champagne Poetry Analysis William Shakespeare Sonnet 130 Sonnet 130, Written by William Shakespeare, is a beautiful poem that captures the realistic beauty of a woman Shakespeare refers to as his "mistress". Upon first reading this poem the conclusion that it is written about a woman he finds unattractive is easily reached. However, once further analyzed it is evident that this poem is actually about a woman he finds beautiful. It is assumed that the woman this poem focuses on was a woman that William Shakespeare personally knew. It is possible the woman in this poem, granted she is not given a name, could be created based on how Shakespeare felt about the unrealistic view of women in general. William Shakespeare may have directed his poem toward one woman, but it is possible he did that as to give his poem more focus. This poem utilizes many metaphors, an example of this is, "coral is far more red then her lips red; if snow be white, why then her breasts are dun; if hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head." The metaphors in this poem lend a realistic view to a poem that could be easily misunderstood. Within this poem the idealistic notions of feminine beauty are challenged with harsh lines, such as "And in some perfumes are there more delight, that in the breath that from my mistress reeks." William Shakespeare says that "my mistress'
William Shakespeare (1564-1616).
William Shakespeare (1564-1616) was born in the English town of Stratford-on-Avon in the prosperous age of Queen Elizabeth I. The Elizabethan Age (1558-1603), considered one of the greatest periods in English history, flourished in many different areas. England not only became a leading naval, commercial, and economic force but also enjoyed an intense cultural and artistic renaissance, supporting the production of authors such as Ben Johnson, Christopher Marlowe, and the remarkable dramatist and poet William Shakespeare. Renaissance is characterized as a period that achieved an extraordinary level of production in architecture, philosophy, literature, painting, and arts in general, being constantly referred to as one of the periods that most contributed to the enrichment and development of humanity. Shakespeare, who was part of this important movement, has been regarded as one of the greatest authors of all times, sustaining a canonical status in the literary history. His literary production, which still remains magnificent and untouchable up to the present moment in spite of the dense, obscure, and sometimes archaic use of language structure, comprises an expansively famous and influential body of literature: 36 plays, 154 sonnets, and 2 narrative poems. In 1593-94 a plague caused the closing of theaters in London. In those years, Shakespeare reduced the production of
Close Reading of Mary Wroth's Sonnet #40.
Close Reading of Mary Wroth's Sonnet #40 Sarah Kimbrell LTBR-104A In Mary Wroth's sequence Pamphilia to Amphilanthus, Wroth writes in the Petrarchan convention of one to an eternally absent lover, speaking of the love they hold. But the similarities end there, for instead of speaking with abject devotion to her lover, Wroth's Pamphilia speaks of a more internal and constant love than Petrarchan sonnets. Where Petrarch and his followers, most notably Wroth's own illustrious family, used sonnets to name and publicly exonerate their lover, Pamphilia loves in private introspection, and Amphilanthus name is mentioned only in the title. Sonnet #40 addresses a very specific loss for a woman, miscarriage, and in addressing this subject, creates a woman's space for love and loss in a world of poetry dominated by men. Wroth is very aware of her poetic legacy and pushes her poetry past the overblown, exhibitionist sonnets of courtly love to create something new. Stylistically, while Wroth conforms to the Petrarchan convention of using iambic pentameter and an octave consisting of two quatrains, both the rhyme scheme and the following quatrain and an ending couplet are variations on the practice. The sonnets first quatrain gives us the image of a pregnant woman bearing 'false hope'. Wroth uses enjambment in the first three lines to make the size of Pamphilia's loss
Gabriela Villanueva Noriega
Gabriela Villanueva Noriega HL4 Other Voices A problem that will hardly be solved through biographical approximation is that of poetical voice. Through biographical approximations one might end up with the dangerous and, above all, simplistic notion that in Shakespeare's sonnet 129 "el poeta experimenta una fuerte sensación de desagrado hacia el amor físico que le lleva a clamar contra la lujuria" (Abad 255-256). Likewise, Sidney's active protestantism has lead some to believe that the poet sought nothing more than moralization, aside from artificial virtuosity.(Lozano 293) The problem with these approximations is that they tend to neglect important parts of the working structure of the poems in order to make sense of them in a biographical way. If one was to believe that there is only one voice in Shakespeare's sonnet 129 and in Sidney's sonnet 5 the poems remain contradictory and ambiguous. On the other hand, by paying attention to specific words and the place and way in which they are uttered, certain ambiguities and contradictions are solved. The ambiguity lays in the fact that the one voice that dictates the principles in the first part of the sonnet, is not too evidently separated from that which will contradict them later on. Still, through the structure and tone one may infer the presence of separate voices and make a more fortunate guess at which one is the