Shakespearean Sonnets XVIII
In class, we finished the poem from Sir Walter Raleigh (see yesterday's post - updated with today's explication) and explicated Shakespeare's Sonnet 18 XVIII
Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
[JSA1]Thou art more lovely and more temperate:[JSA2]
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
[JSA3]And summer's lease hath all too short a date:
[JSA4]Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimmed,
[JSA5]And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance, or nature's changing course untrimmed:
[JSA6]But thy eternal summer shall not fade,
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st,
[JSA7]Nor shall death brag thou wander'st in his shade,[JSA8]
When in eternal lines to time thou grow'st,
[JSA9]So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,
[JSA10]So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.[JSA11]
[JSA1]Sets up s up main metaphor
[JSA2]Double-meaning: one obvious at first, the second evident only after general meaning of sonnet is applied
[JSA3]Spring is sometimes shaken by bad weather
[JSA4]Summer is too short
[JSA5]The sun is sometimes too hot, and sometimes it is covered in cloud
[JSA6]Everything beautiful fall from beauty (beauty fades), either by accident or due to the ravages of time
[JSA7]But your (the lover’s) beauty will never fade – you will not lose your beauty
[JSA8]Death will not claim that you are close to it
[JSA9]When I preserve your beauty and goodness with this poem
[JSA10]As long as a human being exists to read this poem,
[JSA11]This poem will live and will keep you alive (and young and beautiful)
posted by Jeffrey @ Thursday, September 22, 2005
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