This week, when I saw that we would be reading sonnets written by William Shakespeare, I was interested because I immediately thought of Shakespeare's playwrights, not his poetry. After reading a few of his sonnets, I recall reading some of them in high school, such as Sonnet 18 ("Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?") (1063). In high school, I remember analyzing each line and metaphor in these sonnets, but I never remember grasping a bigger picture or main idea. It was not until I reread these sonnets, over and over again, many for the first time, that I came to a realization about Shakespeare, the poet, and his own life. It is evident in many of these sonnets that Shakespeare, wanted these poems to be remembered for their powerful words and true meaning, and a series of these sonnets discuss how he wants his friend to be remembered. Poetry is the only way for his friend and even himself to live on forever and that seems to have been his motive.
As mentioned earlier, when I first read Sonnet 18, I analyzed the metaphors (it is impossible not to do this with poetry-I know). The poem compares the one, possibly Shakespeare's friend to a summer's day, and it says that summer ends and the physical beauty of it dims, by the external beauty never dies. Specifically it says, "But thy eternal summer shall not fade." I believe this line means that the spirit of the person never dies and keeps living on. After analyzing the metaphors, I paid closer attention to the couplet at the end which says, " So long as men can breathe or eyes can see, so long lives this, and this gives life to thee." (lines 13 and 14). This is one of the first sonnets, from this week's selections where I saw this idea of "remembrance through poetry". He wants this poem to be remembered, it will will never die; this is how his friend will be remembered and his life relived.
This pattern continues in the following sonnet, Sonnet 19. The main idea of this poem is that he wants his friend to be remembered for his young self, not what what will become of him after he dies. He wants his friend to live, "forever young". The couplet at the end of the sonnet again, sums it all up. The last two lines, lines13 and 14 state, "Yet do they worst, old Time: despite the wrong, my love shall in my verse live young." This sonnet was written so that all who read it, even us today, can imagine his dear friend, as a young fellow, and not a dead, decayed body.
Sonnet 55 is another exceptional example of how Shakespeare wants his friend to be remembered. He says, "But you shall shine more bright in these contents". What he means is that even if or when the world comes to an end, his friend will still not be forgotten, because there are powerful words written about him and this will outlive the end of the world. The couplet again says at the very end, "You live in this, and dwell in lovers' eyes." As long as this poem exists, so will the spirit of his friend.
The above examples are just a few that exemplify the meaning of these sonnets and what Shakespeare wanted the reader to remember about his friend and himself as a poet. These poems show what really was important to Shakespeare at this time. They prove that he was a good friend indeed, because not only did he want to remember his friend, but he wanted everyone to learn about and love him. The poems help us feel the emotions Shakespeare had for his friend, and centuries from now others will still feel these emotions, because Shakespeare wrote them down for this reason. I think that if his friend should be honored, because his life is still embraced and will forever be so.
5 comments:
So I just read this post after reading your first one and the link you shared above. I feel like some of the lines you quoted definitely can be used as proof that Shakespeare had more of a lover's interest in the man he writes about than a friend. When he says, "You live in this and dwell in lover's eyes" I feel like he means that he is the lover and this man's inner spirit and person will dwell within him forever. Of course, you would remember a friend and how their spirit and personality affected you also so it could just be written in admiration; however, I feel like the type of language he uses and the emotion that is poured into his writing sounds more like a passionate love than admiration or appreciation of a friend.
I would definitely agree with the above comment. There are rumors that Shakespeare was a homosexual, and when he writes about a beautiful man, one can assume he's talking romantically about him. I don't know of any man that writes about how beautiful his friend is, and is just writing that because he's his friend. Especially in sonnet 19, Shakespeare clearly says that this man is his "love"
(9).
After reading the introduction of William Shakespeare, I was surprised that remembrance was such a major theme in these poems. In the introduction, it says, "Shakespeare himself apparently had no interest in preserving for posterity the sum of his writings." It goes on to say, "He wrote for performance by his company, and his scripts existed in his own handwritten manuscripts..." These quotes were talking about Shakespeare's plays that he wrote, however it was one of the things that stuck with me as I was reading. As I noticed that many of his sonnets were about remembrance, I thought it was very ironic that he seemed not to care if his written work was preserved for later generations to read.
After reading your post i definitely agree with you that this man Shakespeare speaks of was very important in his life and he really wanted to honor and respect him, however i am definitely perplexed as to whether this man was just a good friend or if their was more of a romantic connection between the two. Really got me thinking, great rummination!
Going off of what Jennah said with the remembrance and testament through time of Shakespeares poems, there is a reason why all of his works are regarded as fantastic. By being able to last almost half a millenia there must be some reason; ironically the reason may be that he mentions the flow of time and how much is forgotten through the waves. In sonnet 3 he mentions personal destruction over time, 18 immortalizes a woman, 19 mentions time's strengths and how futile it is against Shakespeares writing.
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