The Elizabethan era of poetry took place around the late 16th to early 17th centuries. One of the main poets this era of poetry was William Shakespeare (1564-1616). Shakespeare’s sonnets are some of the most noted poems of the era for their unique style and themes, one of his most common themes being the disillusionment of love. Examine two of Shakespeare’s sonnets, one from his earlier works and one from his later works, and trace the evolution of his writing style and use of themes. Also, explain how these themes fit into the Elizabethan era of poetry.The following link will be useful in exploring the styles and themes of Elizabethan poetry.
http://www.novelguide.com/a/discover/rens_03/rens_03_00370.html
Posted by Shane, Natalie, and Kelly
Elizabethan poetry often use extended metaphors and allegories in their poems. William Shakespeare is famous for his sonnets. He evolved as he aged as well as his poems. they adapted and changed as he matured as a writer.
ReplyDelete"Blow, Blow, thou winter wind"
Blow, blow, thou winter wind
Thou art not so unkind
As man's ingratitude;
Thy tooth is not so keen,
Because thou art not seen,
Although thy breath be rude.
Heigh-ho! sing, heigh-ho! unto the green holly:
Most freindship if feigning, most loving mere folly:
Then heigh-ho, the holly!
This life is most jolly.
Freeze, freeze thou bitter sky,
That does not bite so nigh
As benefits forgot:
Though thou the waters warp,
Thy sting is not so sharp
As a friend remembered not.
Heigh-ho! sing, heigh-ho! unto the green holly:
Most freindship if feigning, most loving mere folly:
Then heigh-ho, the holly!
This life is so Jolly
This poem by Shakespeare focuses on how the "winter wind" if perceived through the right eye is not a bad thing but something that can be "jolly". He focus's on nature here and in his "fairy" poem he focuses on a satirical hierarchy of the queen.
"A Fairy Song"
Over hill, over dale,
Thorough bush, thorough brier,
Over park, over pale,
Thorough flood, thorough fire!
I do wander everywhere,
Swifter than the moon's sphere;
And I serve the Fairy Queen,
To dew her orbs upon the green;
The cowslips tall her pensioners be;
In their gold coats spots you see;
Those be rubies, fairy favours;
In those freckles live their savours;
I must go seek some dewdrops here,
And hang a pearl in every cowslip's ear.
In " A Fairy Song" Shakespeare hones in on the Sonnet style and uses a lot of metaphors. the fairy may really be the king or queen. All the tasks he does for the fairy queen and seeking "depdrops" could be a metaphor for seeking out what the queen wants of him.
Sonnet 08 Music to hear, why hear'st thou music sadly?
ReplyDeleteMusic to hear, why hear'st thou music sadly?
Sweets with sweets war not, joy delights in joy.
Why lovest thou that which thou receivest not gladly,
Or else receivest with pleasure thine annoy?
If the true concord of well-tuned sounds,
By unions married, do offend thine ear,
They do but sweetly chide thee, who confounds
In singleness the parts that thou shouldst bear.
Mark how one string, sweet husband to another,
Strikes each in each by mutual ordering,
Resembling sire and child and happy mother
Who all in one, one pleasing note do sing:
Whose speechless song, being many, seeming one,
Sings this to thee: 'thou single wilt prove none.'
This sonnet's theme is that unity and harmony are good (two is better than one) and that when two things fit together it is a beautiful thing.
Sonnet 116 Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O no! it is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.
Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come:
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.
This sonnets theme is that you should not have to change for love because love is unchanging. This sonnet expresses the idea more clearly than the earlier one and shows a timeless theme. also in his later work he ends with a better "strong couplet".
Both sonnets' themes are about love, the first that when two are in harmony it is beautiful and the second that true love is forever. Love being a very common theme in Shakespeare's sonnets.
Both sonnets use metaphor,repetition and paradox common elements of Elizabethan poetry.
sonnets from: http://www.william-shakespeare.info/william-shakespeare-sonnets.htm
Shakespeare’s sonnets appear to change as he grows older; having the sonnets mature with him. The Elizabethan era was a rime in which poets had a prominent theme of love. Shakespeare is no different in this aspect.
ReplyDeleteSonnet 18 Shall I compare thee to a Summer's day?
Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer's lease hath all too short a date:
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimm'd;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance or nature's changing course untrimm'd;
But thy eternal summer shall not fade
Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest;
Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou growest:
So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
So long lives this and this gives life to thee.
This sonnet undergoes the reaction experienced when “eyes” are set on this girl. Having the theme that how beautiful she is.
Sonnet 147 My love is like a fever, longing still
My love is as a fever, longing still
For that which longer nurseth the disease,
Feeding on that which doth preserve the ill,
The uncertain sickly appetite to please.
My reason, the physician to my love,
Angry that his prescriptions are not kept,
Hath left me, and I desperate now approve
Desire is death, which physic did except.
Past cure I am, now reason is past care,
And frantic-mad with evermore unrest;
My thoughts and my discourse as madmen's are,
At random from the truth vainly express'd;
For I have sworn thee fair and thought thee bright,
Who art as black as hell, as dark as night.
This sonnet’s theme is that love without someone is a longing, a fever within. The two sonnets bring in a comparison to “a fever” or “summer” giving better clarity to the works. Through metaphors, and repetition Shakespeare better achieves his universal message. The later sonnet has matured in the fact that the comparison is from a hurt heart instead of one simply in love. He also closes with a more of an eye opener. Shakespeare wrote in many aspects of the Elizabethan era, and as time progressed so did his poems.
Sonnet 19
ReplyDeleteDevouring Time blunt thou the lion's paws,
And make the earth devour her own sweet brood,
Pluck the keen teeth from the fierce tiger's jaws,
And burn the long-lived phoenix, in her blood,
Make glad and sorry seasons as thou fleet'st,
And do whate'er thou wilt swift-footed Time
To the wide world and all her fading sweets:
But I forbid thee one most heinous crime,
O carve not with thy hours my love's fair brow,
Nor draw no lines there with thine antique pen,
Him in thy course untainted do allow,
For beauty's pattern to succeeding men.
Yet do thy worst old Time: despite thy wrong,
My love shall in my verse ever live young.
Sonnet 19 is one of Shakespeare's earlier poems, and it clearly demonstrates his early perceptions of love. Shakespeare's message is that while Time may change and affect many things, love is forever young. He is emphasizing the fact that true love can never age, and the emotions of love felt by a teenager are the same as an adult.
Sonnet 137
Thou blind fool Love, what dost thou to mine eyes,
That they behold and see not what they see?
They know what beauty is, see where it lies,
Yet what the best is, take the worst to be.
If eyes corrupt by over-partial looks,
Be anchored in the bay where all men ride,
Why of eyes' falsehood hast thou forged hooks,
Whereto the judgment of my heart is tied?
Why should my heart think that a several plot,
Which my heart knows the wide world's common place?
Or mine eyes seeing this, say this is not
To put fair truth upon so foul a face?
In things right true my heart and eyes have erred,
And to this false plague are they now transferred.
This poem, as it was written later in his life, shows a maturation of his opinions of love. In reading Shakespeare's earlier sonnets, such as Clayton's example Sonnet 18, I felt that they involved enfatuation and beauty instead of true love. In Sonnet 137, Shakespeare recognizes the power of inner beauty. He says that love can play tricks on him, as a beautiful person can have a truly horrible personality, and vice versa.
Sonnet 12
ReplyDeleteWhen I do count the clock that tells the time,
And see the brave day sunk in hideous night,
When I behold the violet past prime,
And sable curls all silvered o'er with white:
When lofty trees I see barren of leaves,
Which erst from heat did canopy the herd
And summer's green all girded up in sheaves
Borne on the bier with white and bristly beard:
Then of thy beauty do I question make
That thou among the wastes of time must go,
Since sweets and beauties do themselves forsake,
And die as fast as they see others grow,
And nothing 'gainst Time's scythe can make defence
Save breed to brave him, when he takes thee hence.
Sonnet 12 is one of Shakespeare's earlier poems, it focuses on all of the beauty around him, not necessarily love itself. Although Shakespeare relates most of his poems to true love, some of his sonnets like Sonnet 12 and Clayton's example of Sonnet 18, they are more related to beauty within and around him. Also, this sonnet fits in the Elizabethian era because of Shakespeare followed the rules for a sonnet of meter and rhyme as well as using Petrarch's themes of love.
Sonnet 125
Were't aught to me I bore the canopy,
With my extern the outward honouring,
Or laid great bases for eternity,
Which proves more short than waste or ruining?
Have I not seen dwellers on form and favour
Lose all, and more by paying too much rent
For compound sweet; forgoing simple savour,
Pitiful thrivers in their gazing spent?
No, let me be obsequious in thy heart,
And take thou my oblation, poor but free,
Which is not mixed with seconds, knows no art,
But mutual render, only me for thee.
Hence, thou suborned informer, a true soul
When most impeached, stands least in thy control.
This sonnet relates to true love and a love interest, which is one of Petrarch's themes. Also, Shakespeare followed the strict rules of a sonnet in this one as well. In this sonnet, Shakespeare shows his passion by using words like "savour, true soul, and eternity". These words explain his desire for love and a visual of how he can almost see love.
Redirection: Using a sonnet from both his earlier work and his later work, analyze how the changes in the political circumstances, between the years the sonnets were written, are shown in the two sonnets.
ReplyDeleteLinks:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/16th_century
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/17th_century
Sonnet 1
ReplyDeleteFrom fairest creatures we desire increase,
That thereby beauty's rose might never die,
But as the riper should by time decease,
His tender heir might bear his memory:
But thou, contracted to thine own bright eyes,
Feed'st thy light'st flame with self-substantial fuel,
Making a famine where abundance lies,
Thyself thy foe, to thy sweet self too cruel.
Thou that art now the world's fresh ornament
And only herald to the gaudy spring,
Within thine own bud buriest thy content
And, tender churl, makest waste in niggarding.
Pity the world, or else this glutton be,
To eat the world's due, by the grave and thee.
This introduces the themes of narcissism. However, it also brings in themes of beauty, passage of life, and wasteful self reflection.
Sonnet 130
My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun;
Coral is far more red than her lips' red ;
If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;
If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.
I have seen roses damask, red and white,
But no such roses see I in her cheeks;
And in some perfumes is there more delight
Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.
I love to hear her speak, yet well I know
That music hath a far more pleasing sound;
I grant I never saw a goddess go;
My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground:
And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare
As any she belied with false compare.
A mistress and a other beautiful women are being compared to each other. The mistress can never be as good as the other women.
In the 16th century the Protestant Reformation took place. This made Protestantism a form of Christianity, leaving the Catholic church in turmoil.
In the 17th century the Scientific Revolution took place. New ideas of math, physics, and and biology, shook the foundation of modern science.
Shakespeare Sonnet 1
ReplyDeleteFrom fairest creatures we desire increase,
That thereby beauty's rose might never die,
But as the riper should by time decease,
His tender heir might bear his memory:
But thou, contracted to thine own bright eyes,
Feed'st thy light'st flame with self-substantial fuel,
Making a famine where abundance lies,
Thyself thy foe, to thy sweet self too cruel.
Thou that art now the world's fresh ornament
And only herald to the gaudy spring,
Within thine own bud buriest thy content
And, tender churl, makest waste in niggarding.
Pity the world, or else this glutton be,
To eat the world's due, by the grave and thee.
Shakespeare’s early poetry utilizes softer themes and more complex language than his later works, which exhibit more direct, perhaps even harsher control of the English language. Specifically, note the use of words such as “worser,” “corrupt,” “foul,” and “suspect” in Sonnet 144. This represents a break from the early, lighter writing style exhibited by his initial works, which ran parallel with the heart of the literary renaissance then occurring in England, specifically in their purely Romantic style, evident through language such as “riper,” “bear,” “sweet self,” “spring,” and “bud” in Sonnet 1. The work exhibits a “budding” nature in itself, potentially alluding to the revolutionary (from a scholarly standpoint) atmosphere in late 16th century Europe. This contrasts with Shakespeare’s tone in Sonnet 144 which utilizes maturing Romantic literary elements that, in combination with a darker tone, suggest that Shakespeare, like many of his then colleagues, was coming off of an intellectual “high point” as the revolutionary mood in Europe wound down. Previously, England, following the mid-16th century establishment of the Church of England, entered a period of stability under Queen Elizabeth that enabled the linear progression of Romantic literature to flourish. The less flowery approach filled with heavier descriptors utilized in Sonnet 144 reflects a stable, more centralized Romantic approach that focuses on the personal elements of Romanticism over universal themes.
Shakespeare Sonnet 144
Two loves I have of comfort and despair,
Which like two spirits do suggest me still:
The better angel is a man right fair,
The worser spirit a woman colour'd ill.
To win me soon to hell*, my female evil
Tempteth my better angel from my side,
And would corrupt my saint to be a devil,
Wooing his purity with her foul pride.
And whether that my angel be turn'd fiend
Suspect I may, but not directly tell;
But being both from me, both to each friend,
I guess one angel in another's hell:
Yet this shall I ne'er know, but live in doubt,
Till my bad angel fire my good one out.
Shakespeare Sonnet 1
ReplyDeleteFrom fairest creatures we desire increase,
That thereby beauty's rose might never die,
But as the riper should by time decease,
His tender heir might bear his memory:
But thou, contracted to thine own bright eyes,
Feed'st thy light'st flame with self-substantial fuel,
Making a famine where abundance lies,
Thyself thy foe, to thy sweet self too cruel.
Thou that art now the world's fresh ornament
And only herald to the gaudy spring,
Within thine own bud buriest thy content
And, tender churl, makest waste in niggarding.
Pity the world, or else this glutton be,
To eat the world's due, by the grave and thee.
Sonnet 154
The little Love-god lying once asleep,
Laid by his side his heart-inflaming brand,
Whilst many nymphs that vowed chaste life to keep
Came tripping by; but in her maiden hand
The fairest votary took up that fire
Which many legions of true hearts had warmed;
And so the General of hot desire
Was, sleeping, by a virgin hand disarmed.
This brand she quenched in a cool well by,
Which from Love's fire took heat perpetual,
Growing a bath and healthful remedy,
For men diseased; but I, my mistress' thrall,
Came there for cure and this by that I prove,
Love's fire heats water, water cools not love.
These two sonnets are the first and last sonnets that William Shakespeare wrote, and I can find no better way to compare his earlier and later work than through these poems. In Sonnet 1, Shakespeare's writing seems much more innocent, almost whimsical in his description of a beautiful women, and his views on his love for her are very optimistic. Conversely, in Sonnet 154 Shakespeare's tone is slightly more tragic, personifying love as a sort of inescapable pain that will lead to your demise, or perhaps a sinister force that wears the facade of something brilliant. In this way, you can definitely see his progression from lighthearted to a little darker playwright, which is also easily observed in his early and late woks on the stage as well.
Elizabethan poets frequently used extended metaphors and allegories in their work. Although William SHAKESPEARE (1564–1616) questioned the value of metaphor in sonnets 18 ("Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?") and 130 ("My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun"), he relied on metaphor in these and other works.
ReplyDeleteThere is a noticeable difference in the style and theme of Shakespeare’s first and last sonnet. His first sonnet depicts love with a more youthful and lustful disillusionment:
Sonnet 1
From fairest creatures we desire increase,
That thereby beauty's rose might never die,
But as the riper should by time decease,
His tender heir might bear his memory:
But thou contracted to thine own bright eyes,
Feed'st thy light's flame with self-substantial fuel,
Making a famine where abundance lies,
Thy self thy foe, to thy sweet self too cruel:
Thou that art now the world's fresh ornament,
And only herald to the gaudy spring,
Within thine own bud buriest thy content,
And tender churl mak'st waste in niggarding:
Pity the world, or else this glutton be,
To eat the world's due, by the grave and thee.
His last sonnet intertwines love with more of a divine and mythical theme:
Sonnet 154
The little Love-god lying once asleep,
Laid by his side his heart-inflaming brand,
Whilst many nymphs that vowed chaste life to keep,
Came tripping by, but in her maiden hand,
The fairest votary took up that fire,
Which many legions of true hearts had warmed,
And so the general of hot desire,
Was sleeping by a virgin hand disarmed.
This brand she quenched in a cool well by,
Which from Love's fire took heat perpetual,
Growing a bath and healthful remedy,
For men discased, but I my mistress' thrall,
Came there for cure and this by that I prove,
Love's fire heats water, water cools not love.
Shakespeare’s maturity can be seen through the development of his sonnets. In Sonnet 1, he appears to see love as a playful experience but in Sonnet 154 he views it as something divine and everlasting.