What Makes Shakespeares Sonnets More Preferable - Essay Example

Name: Tutor: Title: Shakespeare’s Sonnets Course: Institution: Date: Shakespeare’s Sonnets In literature, sonnets in English form refer to poetic verses of 14 lines with rhymes arranged into a fixed scheme and divided into three quatrains (4 line stanzas) and a couplet at the end (Burrow, 2002). Shakespeare’s and Milton’s sonnets are among the most popular sonnets worldwide, standing the tests of time by surviving for centuries. Between Shakespeare’s and Milton’s sonnets, my preference is in Shakespeare’s sonnets because they are very much relevant with ideals, issues and desires that prevail in modern society. This forms the basis of this essay that seeks to support my preference for Shakespeare’s sonnets by giving attention to specific sonnets. What Makes Shakespeare’s Sonnets More Preferable? According to Hall, (2006), Milton’s sonnets have affirmation of ideals as the one unifying theme whether he is praising, challenging or blaming them. The fact that Milton’s sonnets are either about his life and career or about people he knew personally as highlighted by Danielson, (1999), they do littleto inspire my life in present day life. On the other hand, each of the 154 Shakespeare’s sonnets introduces new themes that resonate well with issues and concerns that are very much alive and controversial in modern society. This includesthemes on beauty, spiritual love, virtues,individualism, which Shakespeare refers to as wasteful self-consumption,sexual love, life and death. The fact that all Shakespeare’s sonnets addresses different personalities and characters, which have generated countless speculations about who the characters were, including Fair Youth, The Dark Lady and The Rival Poet generates some level of mystery and complexity that makes the Shakespeare’s sonnets an interesting read. Sonnet 1 Sonnet 1 is the first of the 154 sonnets. The themes of the verse range from beauty and self-absorption to passage of life from one generation to another. The structure of sonnet 1 consists of first quatrain that depicts the moral foundation,about how beauty must reproduce itself to ensure it survives through time and space. The second quatrain seeks to rebuke the Fair Youth for going against this moral foundation by refusing to share his beauty by refusing to procreateand ensuring it never dies even when he does (TNAEL, 2012). In the third quatrain, the speaker urges the young man to urgently pay attention to the moral calling and produce offspring before it is too late and his beauty withers and die (Burrow, 2002). The final part of Sonnet 1 is a couplet, which is a final attempt by the speaker to urge the young man to procreate. The young man is told to pity the world or else he runs the risk of being gluttonous just like a grave, to eat the beauty that belongs to the world. The first line of Sonnet 1 rings true to modern life, ‘from the fairest creatures we desire increase,’ where most people tend to date and marry the fairest of them all in terms of beauty, intelligence and character, with the hope and desire that this attributes and ideals will be passed on to a new generation/ the childrenthat will be born of the couple. The main aim of marrying the fairest is to ensure that these attributes forever flourish long after the couple has died as stated in Sonnet 1,‘but as the riper should by time decease, his tender heir might bear his memory:’ In modern society where young people pursue their career and education in the expense of starting a family, the speaker in Sonnet 1 sees them as ‘contracted to thine own bright eyes,’ people who are self- absorbed and captivated by their own intelligence and beauty. He sees them as people ‘feeding their light’s flame with fuel of self-substantial fuel,’whoare fully absorbed in the splendor of their youth and refuse to bear childrenand populate the world with their beauty. Instead, these young people make ‘a famine where abundance lie’ (TNAEL, 2012). In reference to this line, it is quite common in contemporary society, to see educated, skilled, beautiful, career-focused and successful young people postpone the process of starting a family and bearing children to their late thirties and forties only to either give birth to children with health complications or undergo expensive fertile treatments or pursue surrogacy. This happens because they are no longer fertile as they used to be to produce healthy children. What young folks in contemporary society forget is that youth and beauty, what the Sonnet 1 refers to as ‘world’s fresh ornament’ exists only for a while and it eventually fades. In the long run, young people are no longer able to pass their beauty on and it withers within them. Written in Elizabeth times, Shakespeare’s Sonnet 1 seems more relevant and suitable in modern era, where young people are so self-absorbed in their own skills, youth and beauty; they refuse to procreate in good time. They only realize the importance of passing on these skills and beauty to the world through their own children when it is too late when, ‘within thine own bud buriest thy content’ as noted by TNAEL, (2012). Although the speaker in Sonnet 1 seems adamant about what the young man needs to do to ensure his beauty lasts after he dies, the speaker seems unaware of the fact that may be the young man is fulfilled as he is and he can pass on his beauty to the world without necessarily bearing children. Legends such as Mother Theresa and Oprah Winfrey have given their beauty to the world in great measures than women with a dozen children have. Does being childless automatically mean an individual cannot pass on their beauty to future generations and leave a legacy long after they are gone? Apostle Paul would certainly disagree! Sonnet 18 Sonnet 1 to Sonnet 17 isa sequence of attempts by the speaker to openly encouragethe young man to produce offspring in a bid to pass on his beauty. Nevertheless, by the end of Sonnet 17, the speaker seems to come to the realization that the young man may not need offspring to sustain his beauty. In fact, the speaker indicate that the young man can preserve his beauty by living ‘you should live twice; in it and in my rhyme’ as highlighted by Burrow, (2002). Sonnet 18 is an interesting one. In the first line, the speaker begins with a question ‘shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?’ as he seeks to find something that can measure up to the beauty of the beloved. The lines that follow this first line give similar comparison. Although the speaker seeks something that he can compare to his beloved, he is quick to note that nothing compares to his beloved because his beloved has much more to offer. The beloved is ‘more lovely and more temperate than a summer’s day, which is not only short-lived ‘…summer’s lease hath all too short a date:’ but also, has rough winds ‘rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,’ hot sun ‘too hot the eye of heaven shines,’ darkness ‘often is his gold complexion dimm’d’ and fading beauty ‘…every fair from fair sometime declines’ (TNAEL, 2012). The last quatrain of Sonnet 18 sees the speaker change tune from Sonnet 1 to Sonnet 17 and shows how the young man is better than summer. He states, ‘But thy eternal summer shall not fade….Nor shall Death brag thou wander’st in his shade…’ The final part of Sonnet 18 is a couplet that explains how the beauty of the young man shall live forever. The speaker indicates that the beauty of the young man is preserved in the sonnet that will last eternally. According to the speaker, ‘So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,’ the sonnet will live and in it, the life and beauty of the young man shall live on forever. The simplicity of Sonnet 18 and its sincere praise of the beloved captivate any reader and leave them in awe. Although there is nothing complex about the words used in Sonnet 18, the imagery, language and wording used breathes life to the sonnet. The constant use of punctuation at the end of most lines allows the reader to pause and digest the line and better understand how lovely the young man is (Burrow, 2002). Throughout Sonnet 1 to Sonnet 18, the speaker has the innate desire for the young man to defy time and live eternally and he ensures the beauty of the young man lives on forever and does not fade by embodying the young man’s beauty to the poem. The speaker states ‘So long as men can breathe or eyes can see, So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.’ Primarily, Sonnet 18 is the speaker’s first endeavor to help the beauty of the young man to live on ‘in my rhyme.’ Sonnet 97 In Sonnet 18, the speaker tries to compare the beloved to summer but not even the grandeur of summer day comes close to measuring up to the beauty of the beloved because the beloved’s eternal summer shall never fade. In Sonnet 97, the speaker likens his separation with the beloved to the freezing, bare, fruitless and dull winter season (TNAEL, 2012). The first quatrain of the sonnet sees the speaker give a vivid description of what his separation from the beloved feels like (Burrow, 2002). He states ‘whatfreezings have I felt, what dark days seen!’ The speaker indicates that there is nothing exciting anymore ‘…What old December’s bareness every where!’ It is interesting to note that, although the speaker feels like it is already the winter season, in actual sense, it is in late summer ‘And yet this time removed was summer’s time, The teeming autumn, big with rich increase, Bearing the wanton burden of the prime…’ It is the separation from the beloved that makes the speaker oblivious of the richness of summer’s blood. In fact, in the subsequent quatrain, the speaker dismisses the summer’s bounty as unreal and sees it as ‘…hope of orphans and unfather’d fruit.’ He insists that the bounties are not procreated by summer because the pleasures of summer can only occur when he finally is with the beloved. Now that the beloved is far away, birds no longer sing and when they do sing, it is ‘…with so dull a cheer,’ which makes the leaves listening to the birds look pale with fear that the season of winter has arrived when in reality, the winter is far off (TNAEL, 2012). The use of metaphors in Sonnet 97 acts as a form of delusional suggestion of how deeply the beloved is missed. Although the summer season is in its prime, the speaker only see ‘old December’s bareness every where!’ because he is separated from the beloved.The richness of the language, evocative wording, metaphors and imageries used in Sonnet 97 manages to effectively blend the warmth and pleasures of summer’s bloom and ‘freezings’ of winters that exists in the mind of the speaker who is engulfed with loneliness following the separation from his beloved. Although summer flowers are blooming and trees around him are heavy with fruits, he cannot bring himself to acknowledge and enjoy them when he is separated from his beloved (TNAEL, 2012). To the speaker, without his beloved near him, the summer season could as well be the winter season. Sonnet 116 Sonnet 116 is among the many attempts by the speaker to define true love. In Sonnet 116, the speaker describes what true love is and what it is not (Burrow, 2002). The first quatrain of the sonnet sees the speaker states that true love, which is ‘the marriage of true minds…’ is both unchanging and perfect. According to the speaker, love is not true love when it ‘admit impediments.’ Primarily, true love is unchanging when it finds changes in the beloved. In the subsequent quatrain, the speaker uses a metaphor to describe what love is. He states that true love is the star that guides lost ships ‘…is the star to every wandering bark’ and it is not vulnerable to storms ‘…looks on tempests and is never shaken.’ In the third quatrain of Sonnet 116, what true love is not is described. According to the speaker, true love is not affected and influenced by time ‘Love’s not Time’s fool…’ Although beauty such as ‘…rosy lips and cheeks’ fades with time, true love stands the test of time, survives all manner of difficulties and it is unchanging to passing hours and weeks ‘…Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,But bears it out even to the edge of doom.’ In the sonnet’s couplet, the speaker confirms that he is sure about what he has said about what true love is and what it is not (Burrow, 2002). He indicates that if what he has said about what love is can be proven wrong, then he affirms that he never wrote the sonnet and no man can then say he has ever been in love ‘If this be error and upon me proved, i never writ, nor no man ever loved.’ The speaker’s definition of love in Sonnet 116 is the extreme ideal of what true love is. True love is undying, unchanging, it never fades and it never admits flaws and when it does change, fades and dies, then, according to the speaker ‘…no man ever loved.’ The sonnet’s emotional strength and rhetorical supremacy is driven by the tone and language used by the speaker and the strong emotional belief he has. The use of the words ‘O no!’ immediately after stating that love does not ‘…bends with the remover to remove…’ indicates the speaker’s certainty about what true love is and what it is not. The speaker in Sonnet 116seems so sure of what love is and he is so keen to make everyone understand love as he does, the reader has no choice but to agree and he has me convinced. Sonnet 129 Sonnet 129 deals with issues surrounding lust. In present day dating scene, people are always grappling with the question whether what they feel for their date is true love or lust. The speaker comprehensively describes lust in three distinct stages. The first stage as a yearning for pleasure in the future, the second stage as pleasurable fulfillment experienced in the present and the third stage as a memory that is remembered long after it has been experienced, when it turns out to be the source of shame. In the opening lines of Sonnet 129 in the first quatrain, ‘lust in action,’ which is lust as it is at the end of a sexual encounter is described as, ‘The expense of spirit in a waste of shame?’ However, before lust is consummated ‘and till action…’ lust exists as ‘…perjured, murderous, bloody, full of blame, savage, extreme, rude, cruel, not to trust,’(TNAEL, 2012). The second quatrain of Sonnet 129 sees the speaker blend the three stages of lust seamlessly (Burrow, 2002). According to the speaker, as soon as lust is enjoyed, it is loathed ‘…Enjoy’d no sooner but despised straight.’ Ironically, when lust is longed for, the fulfillment for the longing is sought after past reason and as soon as the fulfillment is achieved, lust becomes shameful and it is in the same way hated past reason ‘past reason hunted, and no sooner had, past reason hated, as a swallow’d bait…’ Even in modern dating life, it is common for an individual to lust for another and long to have them for themselves. They hunt for those they lust passionately and ‘past reason’, they do not mind travelling across seas, robbing the bank and even spending their savings in a bid to fulfill their lustful longing. When they eventually achieve what they longed for, it is common to find people feel ashamed for their lust and consequently, hate lust. This may explain why two people who were inseparable, suddenly become sworn enemies for no valid reason. In the third quatrain, lust is described as mad. Lust is mad when pursuing, possessing and remembering it ‘…Mad in pursuit and in possession so; Had, having, and in quest to have, extreme.’ The speaker notes that while lust might seem delightful ‘bliss in proof’ when experiencing it, it proves to be a bad thing ‘a very woe’ once it is experienced (TNAEL, 2012). While longing for it, lust promises joy ‘Before, a joy proposed;’ but once it is experienced and it is a memory, it is just a dream ‘behind, a dream.’ In the couplet, it is clear that although everyone knows that longing, experiencing and remembering lust generates shame, nobody seems to know ways of avoiding lust in order to shun shame ‘All this the world well knows; yet none knows well, to shun the heaven that leads men to this hell.’ Primarily, Sonnet 129 is a complex piece that swiftly takes the reader through all the three stages of lust. The speaker uses strong carnal language to describe lust, using words such as ‘perjured, murderous, bloody, full of blame, savage, extreme, rude, cruel.’ This might indicate that the speaker although he does not want to acknowledge it, he has longed and consummated lust and he is presently in ‘this hell’ and he is repulsed and ashamed of it. Although the speaker tries very hard to hide his one or several surrenders to lust by using impersonal tone, he is not successful because his ferocious description of lust is too vivid to have been experienced by someone else. Conclusion Shakespeare’s sonnets are a real inspiration for both young and old in contemporary society. Although the 154 sonnets were written in another era and for a different audience, the themes that emerge out of these sonnets are so relevant to modern life and issues, if I did not know better, I would think it was written by a 21st Century author with the contemporary audience in mind. The fact that Shakespeare’s sonnets are over five centuries old and are still applicable in modern life does it for me. Ask me to choose between Shakespeare’s and Milton’s sonnets and I will prefer the former anytime. This is not to say that Milton’s sonnets do not have any impact on me. They do, only that Shakespeare’s sonnets have more impact about day-to day issues that directly affect my life from love, lust and beauty to producing offspring, virtues and issues of mortality. Bibliography Burrow, C. Complete Sonnets and Poems. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002. Burrow, C. William Shakespeare: Complete Sonnets and Poems. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002. Danielson, D.The Cambridge Companion to Milton. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999. Hall, R.F. Milton's sonnets and his contemporaries. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006. The Norton Anthology of English Literature (TNAEL).The 16th and Early 17th Centuries.Vol B, 2012. Read More