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Sonnet 18 Symbolism

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William Shakespeare's sonnet, "Shall I compare thee to a summer's day" is describing to the reader a perfect young man. Some people believe that Sonnet 18 is one of the greatest love poems of all time, it is certainly one of the most famous of Shakespeare's Sonnets. Shakespeare wrote this sonnet, like the others, in iambic pentameter. The poem begins by slowly building the image of a young man, who eventually ends up being described as a human being who is above every other person he has laid eyes on. He deals with beauty and how it affects time. The nature of the relationship between these two men has been debated for centuries. Is it platonic love or something deeper than that? The young man described in not only this poem, as well as the …show more content…

In this sonnet, he uses symbolism to represent how for eternity people will remember him. He wants the subject of his poem to be remembered forever through his literature, which he makes very clear in his poem. The first reference to this is, "But thy eternal summer shall not fade," (line 9). Again, he is referencing the summer. He is saying that this man's beauty will never fade because of his work, he believes the golden young man that Shakespeare wrote about will live forever in people's memories. Also, the subject is too bright to ever wander into death's path, meaning that his beauty and light is no match to Death. He will forever be young and beautiful, even in the eyes of Death as a result of that he is unflawed. In the 12th line of the poem, Shakespeare literally uses the word eternal to describe his poem, this shows that he believes people will be reading this poem for an extremely long time because, "so long as men can breathe, or eyes can see, / So long lives this, this gives life to thee," (lines 13-14). As long as his poem is popular, the story of the golden young man will be too. He has so much faith in himself as a writer that he knows people will be reading this for years and years to come. Consequently, he believes that as long as there are people to read his sonnet he knows the eternal summer will never cease to

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In the poem “For That He Looked Not upon Her” written by George Gascoigne in 1573 there is a suffering and miserable attitude that is developed through the usage of literary devices such as the structure, diction, and imagery. First of all, the form or structure helps to convey the suffering and miserable attitude. This poem is a shakespearean sonnet that has an iambic pentameter and a heroic couplet at then end. The heroic couplet at the end reveals the final meaning of the poem, it is when the speaker tells the audience the source of his suffering. These sonnets typically have an attitude that is positive but because of the diction that is used that is what emphasizes on the negative attitude.

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“Beauty is not in the face; beauty is a light in the heart.-Kahlil Gibran.” Inner beauty is more important than any other characteristics or features of you, for it is everlasting. This theme can be seen repeatedly throughout history, and specifically in Edmond Rostand’s“ Cyrano De Bergerac” and world-renowned William Shakespeare’s“ Sonnet 18.” Both the selections use different techniques to emphasize inner beauty. The book has a constant use of poetry to establish romanticism, and the poem uses metaphors to bring out rare and loving characteristics.

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In Sonnet 16, written by Elizabeth Barrett Browning, the speaker is controlled by emotions and sees herself lowly, while her beloved is noble and is viewed as a worthier person. Through this sonnet, Browning shows that love has immense power. Throughout the poem, Elizabeth uses vivid images and detailed wording to show herself as a lowly, sad human and to show her lover like a higher being. From the first line to the seventh line of Sonnet 16, Elizabeth describes the lover like royalty, calling him “more noble and like a king” that “has” purple cloth (purple was commonly worn by the higher-ups); if he were to conquer her heart, it would make the lover “as lordly …/In lifting upward”.

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Another point is that in first line, a metaphor within a rhetorical question is used to compare 'Thee' to a summer's day, which represents his absoluteness and knowledge that he knows for sure that his lover is far more greater than a Summer's day will ever be. This proves that jovial attitude is indeed expressed in Sonnet 18.

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A sonnet is fundamentally a dialectical construct which allows the poet to examine the nature and ramifications of two usually contrastive ideas,emotions, states of mind, beliefs, actions, events, images, etc., byjuxtaposing the two against each other, and possibly resolving or justrevealing the tensions created and operative between the two. O. K., so much for the fancy language. Basically, in a sonnet, youshow two related but differing things to the reader in order to communicatesomething about them. Each of the three major types of sonnets accomplishesthis in a somewhat different way. There are, of course, other types of sonnets,as well, but I 'll stick for now to just the basic three (Italian, Spenserian, English), with a brief look at

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In these short poems, the authors utilize particular rhetorical techniques and methods to reflect the speakers’ personality and motivation. Therefore, presenting the speaker becomes the main focus of the authors. In Shakespeare’s Sonnet 18 and Robert Browning’s “My Last Duchess,” both poems reflect the speakers’ traits through monologue, figurative language, and symbolism. However, these two speakers’ personalities are different due to their attitude toward their beloved. The speaker in Sonnet 18 is gentle and delighted but frustrated because the ideal metaphor comparison of summer is not perfect for describing his beloved; the poem thus suggests that the way you love others reflects how you feel about yourself.

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Shakespeare believes that the time is a very destructive force. It is so powerful that it can decay and destroy every mortal things of the world. Nothing is out from the clutch of time and its shadow. “And every fair from fair sometimes declines, In this scenario, Saraswathy R. Murthy rightly said, “The theme of love is certainly the predominant theme of the sonnets of Shakespeare.

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