Free Essay: Analysis of Sonnet 1 Sonnet essays

Analysis of 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, 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, thender 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. Among this being the first sonnet, it is the first of a sequence of procreation sonnets which are addressed to a man as an arguement for him to bear children. The image of flowers arises in this sonnet as we see beauty represented as a rose. 1-4: ‘We want to reproduce with the most beatiful of people, so that beauty will remain [in life], but as the elder dies due to time, his child will quite possibly will remember him’. (Time can be read as personified as with the other sonnets). An idea of the offspring resembling the parents is present; therefore, it is of no wonder why we desire either the “increase” in aesthetic pleasure or the “increase” of heirs from the most beautiful. Line 7 gives the reader the notion that this man, since he has not produced children yet, is making barren the fruitful womb of his lover, thus making himself his own enemy. 11: ‘bury your happiness in the bud (of the rose), [with the rose alluding to beauty], but beauty cannot bring forth happiness’. Shakespeare is chiding him for this as he is under the impression that he is making waste of the fruitful womb of his lover.

Free Essays On Shakespeare’s Sonnet 154

Analysis of Sonnet 154

The little Love-god lying once asleep

Laid by his side his heart-inflaming brand,

Whilst many nymphs that vow’d 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 warm’d,

And so the General of hot desire

Was sleeping by a virgin hand disarm’d.

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 diseas’d. But, I, my mistress’ thrall,

Came there for cure; and this by that I prove:

Love’s fire heats water, water cools not love.

This sonnet appears to be another version of 153 rather than one of a series. These two sonnets, two renderings of the same ides, could either prove or disprove Shakespeare’s authorship. Only twice did Shakespeare rewrite any of his sonnets, both 138 and 144 appear slightly modified in _The Passionate Pilgrim_. These are evidence of Shakespeare’s rewritings, but the only problem is if one is out to prove the authorship on these grounds, over-revision remains a factor; that is, Shakespeare rewrote the two sonnets changing only a few words and not the entire sonnet. These seem to be the problems with citing Shakespeaare as their author, but equally disproving him as the author. If I were to argue for Shakespeare’s authorship, I would correlate “the help of bath” with being an allusion to “The Wife of Bath’s Tale” in Chaucer’s _Canterbury Tales_. Shakespeare used Chaucer as a source in _A Midsummer Night’s Dream_ (from “The Kinght’s Tale” and “The Miller’s Tale”), _Troilus and Cressida_ (from _Troilus and Criseyde) and _The Two Noble Kinsmen_ (from “The Knight’s Tale”). Seeing that Shakespeare used Chaucer as a reference in the past for help, I suppose “the help of bath” could be a tribut to Chaucer and thus a possible source or allusion. But this does remain on unsubstantial grounds due to the possibility of it simply meaning a water-filled basin.