We have been studying sonnets for a few days in the class. We looked at the very first structure of a sonnet and how it was changed by Shakespeare. As well as poets before Shakespeare, he wrote love sonnets; however, the love he was describing differed from love the poets before him wrote about. Shakespeare wrote about love in friendship. Even though many people think that he wrote to a gay boyfriend, I think that he was just writing about a friendship love to a friend. There is nothing wrong with being close to a friend in a nonphysical way. If it is okay for girls to talk about love each other, why should it be different for boys, for friendship is equal to both genders?
Shakespeare’s sonnets are a beautiful creation of poetry. They contain a lot of information about romance and beauty itself. Shakespeare had a gift of making thing look different then they appear for real. His use of metaphors and similes make any poet nowadays jealous. In a short sonnet of 14 lines Shakespeare could include up to 3 metaphors, which can be recognized only with a close look at them. Interpretation of Shakespeare’s work can take ours and you still won’t be able to get it without help. The language he uses is his own creation which can’t be compared to anybody else.
Out of all the sonnets, at which we looked in the class, I like the most is sonnet 73. In my opinion this sonnet talks about appreciation of what you have, for when you loose it, you miss it the most. The idea Shakespeare followed wasn’t just about telling the boy he liked him, but it had a message for every person who would be able to see it. As well as any other poem, Shakespeare’s sonnets can be interpreted in different ways and also might contain a different message. It depends on where you are in this life and where you are going with emotional world.
Tuesday, February 10, 2009
Tuesday, February 3, 2009
Because I Could Not Stop for Death
Because I could not stop for Death,
He kindly stopped for me;
The carriage held but just ourselves
And Immortality.
We slowly drove, he knew no haste,
And I had put away
My labour, and my leisure too,
For his civility.
We passed the school where children played,
Their lessons scarcely done;
We passed the fields of gazing grain,
We passed the setting sun.
We paused before a house that seemed
A swelling of the ground;
The roof was scarcely visible,
The cornice but a mound.
Since then 'tis centuries; but each
Feels shorter than the day
I first surmised the horses' heads
Were toward eternity.
The poetess talks about life and its aspects through images. The syntax of the poem is clearly shown throughout the whole poem. The poetess uses symbols along with the images. Moreover, the theme is being presented in the poem.
The poetess uses an image of a person she calls Death in its carriage to show that the life has its end. She also describes how death is not a bed thing and that it is even kind. She talks about death like it’s only a beginning. When the poetess starts talking about the drive in the carriage, she mostly describes a person’s life and what they go through. The drive in the carriage represents the flow of life. She is looking at it from the side, it could be an image for memory when people look back at their lives, but remember as it happened to somebody else but not them. The image of the house may be talking about a close end of life – the drive. The poetess talks how the ground was a little swelled. It can mean a few things. First is that the person is dying of some disease and that is why death looks like an escape. Second is that by the end of life a person creates a swelling of it’s memories and actions and puts it into one place. The last stanza stands for the actual death towards which the person was going. The poetess describes how life maybe so long, but it feels like an only moment as one breath.
The theme of the poem is about the journey of life. A life that was fulfilled with memories. A person that the poetess is describing seems very grateful through the time he spent living.
He kindly stopped for me;
The carriage held but just ourselves
And Immortality.
We slowly drove, he knew no haste,
And I had put away
My labour, and my leisure too,
For his civility.
We passed the school where children played,
Their lessons scarcely done;
We passed the fields of gazing grain,
We passed the setting sun.
We paused before a house that seemed
A swelling of the ground;
The roof was scarcely visible,
The cornice but a mound.
Since then 'tis centuries; but each
Feels shorter than the day
I first surmised the horses' heads
Were toward eternity.
The poetess talks about life and its aspects through images. The syntax of the poem is clearly shown throughout the whole poem. The poetess uses symbols along with the images. Moreover, the theme is being presented in the poem.
The poetess uses an image of a person she calls Death in its carriage to show that the life has its end. She also describes how death is not a bed thing and that it is even kind. She talks about death like it’s only a beginning. When the poetess starts talking about the drive in the carriage, she mostly describes a person’s life and what they go through. The drive in the carriage represents the flow of life. She is looking at it from the side, it could be an image for memory when people look back at their lives, but remember as it happened to somebody else but not them. The image of the house may be talking about a close end of life – the drive. The poetess talks how the ground was a little swelled. It can mean a few things. First is that the person is dying of some disease and that is why death looks like an escape. Second is that by the end of life a person creates a swelling of it’s memories and actions and puts it into one place. The last stanza stands for the actual death towards which the person was going. The poetess describes how life maybe so long, but it feels like an only moment as one breath.
The theme of the poem is about the journey of life. A life that was fulfilled with memories. A person that the poetess is describing seems very grateful through the time he spent living.
Monday, February 2, 2009
A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning
As virtuous men pass mildly away,
And whisper to their souls, to go,
Whilst some of their sad friends doe say,
The breath goes now, and some say, no:
So let us melt, and make no noise,
No tear-floods, nor sigh-tempests move,
'Twere profanation of our joys
To tell the laity our love.
Moving of th'earth brings harms and fears,
Men reckon what it did and meant,
But trepidation of the spheres,
Though greater far, is innocent.
Dull sublunary lovers love
(Whose soul is sense) cannot admit
Absence, because it doth remove
Those things which elemented it.
But we by a love, so much refined
That we ourselves know not what it is,
Inter-assured of the mind,
Care less, eyes, lips, and hands to miss.
Our two souls therefore, which are one,
Though I must go, endure not yet
A breach, but an expansion,
Like gold to airy thinness beat.
If they be two, they are two so
As stiff twin compasses are two,
Thy soul the fixed foot, makes no show
To move, but doth, if th’ other do.
And though it in the center sit,
Yet when the other far doth roam,
It leans, and hearkens after it,
And grows erect, as it comes home.
Such wilt thou be to me, who must
Like th'other foot, obliquely run;
Thy firmness makes my circle just,
And makes me end, where I begun.
The poet talks about love, but about a special kind of love. He talks about love that does not come to everybody maybe in their entire life. The poet does not actually mention the word love in the poem, but he uses metaphors to lead us to such a conclusion. Also, the poem has its special syntax that is maintained throughout the whole poem.
The biggest metaphor that the poet uses is about compasses. He talks how the two lovers are in the relationship to each other as the legs of the compasses are. He describes how they maybe far from each other but still together. His metaphors are incredible. In the very beginning the poet talks about love from the eyes of other people. He describes how other people think about love. Later in the poem he compares his love to the love of other people. He describes his love as the most pure love. The poet talks about a difference between passion and pure love because sometimes people mistake simple passion for real love.
Moreover, the poem includes the syntax that is perfectly continued till the end of the poem. The author chose each word to complete the sentence and to rhyme the sound. Syntax in a poem is very important and especially in a love poem. A love poem is supposed to flow and syntax helps to make it true.
And whisper to their souls, to go,
Whilst some of their sad friends doe say,
The breath goes now, and some say, no:
So let us melt, and make no noise,
No tear-floods, nor sigh-tempests move,
'Twere profanation of our joys
To tell the laity our love.
Moving of th'earth brings harms and fears,
Men reckon what it did and meant,
But trepidation of the spheres,
Though greater far, is innocent.
Dull sublunary lovers love
(Whose soul is sense) cannot admit
Absence, because it doth remove
Those things which elemented it.
But we by a love, so much refined
That we ourselves know not what it is,
Inter-assured of the mind,
Care less, eyes, lips, and hands to miss.
Our two souls therefore, which are one,
Though I must go, endure not yet
A breach, but an expansion,
Like gold to airy thinness beat.
If they be two, they are two so
As stiff twin compasses are two,
Thy soul the fixed foot, makes no show
To move, but doth, if th’ other do.
And though it in the center sit,
Yet when the other far doth roam,
It leans, and hearkens after it,
And grows erect, as it comes home.
Such wilt thou be to me, who must
Like th'other foot, obliquely run;
Thy firmness makes my circle just,
And makes me end, where I begun.
The poet talks about love, but about a special kind of love. He talks about love that does not come to everybody maybe in their entire life. The poet does not actually mention the word love in the poem, but he uses metaphors to lead us to such a conclusion. Also, the poem has its special syntax that is maintained throughout the whole poem.
The biggest metaphor that the poet uses is about compasses. He talks how the two lovers are in the relationship to each other as the legs of the compasses are. He describes how they maybe far from each other but still together. His metaphors are incredible. In the very beginning the poet talks about love from the eyes of other people. He describes how other people think about love. Later in the poem he compares his love to the love of other people. He describes his love as the most pure love. The poet talks about a difference between passion and pure love because sometimes people mistake simple passion for real love.
Moreover, the poem includes the syntax that is perfectly continued till the end of the poem. The author chose each word to complete the sentence and to rhyme the sound. Syntax in a poem is very important and especially in a love poem. A love poem is supposed to flow and syntax helps to make it true.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
