Shakespeare and Spencer - Essay Example

Shakespeare and Spencer Love in its different manifestations, the flying of spirit and low passions, philosophicalreflections and ruthless introspection - all these, as well as bright images, cascades of brilliant metaphors and just fine verses can be found in the sonnets by Shakespeare. It is no wonder that nearly four hundred years later they remain favorite reading for millions of people. Shakespeares sonnets were sharply notable on the general background and became a real discovery of that time.

Instead of decorative Stellas and Delias, which occupied the sonnets of his contemporaries (who consciously eliminated from these female images their real prototypes - ladies of quality), we see anonymous, but quite living people - the poet, his Friend and his beloved. The sonnets by Shakespeare are a strange for its spontaneity and frankness reflection of the personality, in intimate lyrics; they are written in an unartful, cleared of rhetorical conventions language, and sometimes are so direct in conveying the difficult relations of heroes that, undoubtedly, had to throw into confusion the readers of that time who got used to sophisticated conditionally style.

From here long lasting opinion of "roughness" of Shakespearean language springs from. Shakespeares contemporary Edmund Spencer (1552-1599), whose book "Amoretti" appeared in 1595 (that is, perhaps, in the same year when Shakespeare stopped writing sonnets), thought up the difficult system of rhyming for the sonnets, which is skillfully making impression of a uniform spirit, which each sonnet was based on. Shakespeare didnt need similar shifts: his sonnets already look quite naturally (there is a striking example of a sonnet written on uniform spirit - the sonnet 66, but it is based not on the formal intention to create an effect, but on the original feeling, which captured the poet).

Besides, according to the ideas about the preservation of the purity of English, Spencer used intonations, which were far from casual conversation, and filled sonnets with archaic words.” The difference in temperament between Spenser and Shakespeare is revealed in the rhyme scheme each preferred. Spenser was a poet of elegance who looked back at other poets, Chaucer especially; and who wanted his readers to know that he was writing in the grand poetic tradition – whereas Shakespeare was impishly forward looking, a Dramatist first and a Poet second, who enjoyed turning tradition and expectation on its head, surprising his readers (as all Dramatists like to do) by turning Patrarchan expectations upside down” (Shakespearean, Spenserian, & Petrarchan Sonnets).

Shakespeare represented the complete antithesis to Spencer: the language was not his goal, but means, and such means, which are needed to be enriched and expanded. Therefore, seeking to leave from stamps, he used in sonnets the both simple, "homespun", words and more literary, but taken from the areas, which are far from poetry. Works cited Shakespearean, Spenserian, & Petrarchan Sonnets. poemshape.wordpress.com. Web. October 18, 2015