William Shakespeare

Shakespeare’s sonnets were composedbetween 1593 and 1601, though not publisheduntil 1609. That edition, The Sonnets ofShakespeare, consists of 154 sonnets, allwritten in the form of three quatrains and acouplet that is now recognized asShakespearean. The sonnets fall into twogroups: sonnets 1-126, addressed to a belovedfriend, a handsome and noble young man,presumably the author’s patron, and sonnets127-152, to a malignant but fascinating “DarkLady," who the poet loves in spite of himself.Nearly all of Shakespeare’s sonnets examinethe inevitable decay of time, and theimmortalization of beauty and love in poetry.

Shakespeare’s sonnets were composedbetween 1593 and 1601, though not publisheduntil 1609. That edition, The Sonnets ofShakespeare, consists of 154 sonnets, allwritten in the form of three quatrains and acouplet that is now recognized asShakespearean. The sonnets fall into twogroups: sonnets 1-126, addressed to a belovedfriend, a handsome and noble young man,presumably the author’s patron, and sonnets127-152, to a malignant but fascinating “DarkLady," who the poet loves in spite of himself.Nearly all of Shakespeare’s sonnets examinethe inevitable decay of time, and theimmortalization of beauty and love in poetry.

an English poet and playwright,widely regarded as the greatestwriter in the English language andthe world's pre-eminent dramatist.He is often called England'snational poet and the "Bard ofAvon". His surviving works,including some collaborations,consist of about 38 plays, 154sonnets, two long narrativepoems, and several other poems.His plays have been translatedinto every major living languageand are performed more oftenthan those of any otherplaywright.

Shakespeare was born and raised in Stratford-upon-

Avon. At the age of 18, he married Anne Hathaway,

with whom he had three children: Susanna, and twins

Hamnet and Judith.

Between 1585 and 1592, he began a successful career

in London as an actor, writer, and part owner of a

playing company called the Lord Chamberlain's Men,

later known as the King's Men.

He appears to have retired to Stratford around 1613 at

age 49, where he died three years later. Few records

of Shakespeare's private life survive, and there has

been considerable speculation about such matters as

his physical appearance, sexuality, religious beliefs,

and whether the works attributed to him were written

by others.

Shakespeare produced most of his known work

between 1589 and 1613.

His early plays were mainly comedies and histories,

genres he raised to the peak of sophistication and

artistry by the end of the 16th century.

He then wrote mainly tragedies until about 1608,

including Hamlet, King Lear, Othello, and

Macbeth, considered some of the finest works in

the English language.

In his last phase, he wrote tragicomedies, also

known as romances, and collaborated with other

playwrights.

Many of his plays were published in editions of

varying quality and accuracy during his lifetime. In

1623, two of his former theatrical colleagues

published the First Folio, a collected edition of his

dramatic works that included all but two of the

plays now recognised as Shakespeare's.

Shakespeare was a respected poet and

playwright in his own day, but his reputation did

not rise to its present heights until the 19th century.

The Romantics, in particular, acclaimed

Shakespeare's genius, and the Victorians

worshipped Shakespeare with a reverence that

George Bernard Shaw called "bardolatry".

In the 20th century, his work

was repeatedly adopted

and rediscovered by new

movements in scholarship

and performance. His plays

remain highly popular today

and are constantly studied,

performed and

reinterpreted in diverse

cultural and political

contexts throughout the

world.

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 dimmed,

And every fair from fair sometime declines,

By chance, or nature's changing course untrimmed:

But thy eternal summer shall not fade,

Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st,

Nor shall death brag thou wander'st in his shade,

When in eternal lines to time thou grow'st,

So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,

So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?

This question is flattering in itself as a

summer’s day is often associated with

beauty.

Thou art more lovely and more temperate:

Shakespeare, however, explains that

his love’s beauty exceeds that of the

summer and does not have its

tendency towards unpleasant

extremes:

Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,

And summer's lease hath all too short a date:

It should be noted that at the time the

sonnet was written, England had not yet

adopted the Gregorian calendar and May

was considered a summer month. In the

above quote, Shakespeare describes the

fragility and short duration of summer’s

beauty. The use of the word ‘lease’ reminds

us of the fact that everything beautiful

remains so for a limited time only and after a

while its beauty will be forcibly taken away.

Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,

And often is his gold complexion dimmed,

Shakespeare states that the sun, which he

personifies and refers to as ‘the eye of

heaven’, can be too hot or blocked from

view by the clouds unlike his ‘more

temperate’ love.

And every fair from fair sometime declines,

By chance, or nature's changing course untrimmed:

The repetition of the word ‘fair’ highlights the

fact that this fate is inescapable for

everything that possesses beauty.

“But thy eternal summer shall not fade,

Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st,

Nor shall death brag thou wander’st in his shade

When in eternal lines to time thou grow’st”

Suddenly (though it was foreshadowed a bit in

line 8), the tone and direction of the poem

changes dramatically. Moving on from

bashing summer and the limitations inherent in

nature, the speaker pronounces that the

beloved he’s speaking to isn’t subject to all of

these rules he’s laid out.

“But thy eternal summer shall not fade,

Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st,

Nor shall death brag thou wander’st in his shade

When in eternal lines to time thou grow’st”

Shakespeare, however, states that his love

will not lose their beauty to death or time

but will be preserved through his poetry:

So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,

So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

(As long as there are humans alive on this

planet Your life and beauty will live on

through this sonnet)

Shakespeare’s self-assured claim makes it

possible to argue that the purpose of the

poem was not actually to pay a beloved

person a compliment but rather to praise

oneself for poetic skill.

Speaker:

The Author

Addressee:

The young man

Tone:

Endearing, deep devotion for a lover

• “The darling buds of May” –

the beautiful, much loved

buds of the early summer

• “The eye of heaven” – Sun

Metaphor:

“Shall I compare thee to a

summer’s day?”

Metaphor:

"Thou art more lovely and more

temperate”

Personification:

“Rough winds do shake the

darling buds of May”

“Sometime too hot the eye of

heaven shines“

Personification:

“Nor shall death brag thou

wander’st in his shade”

Anaphora:

“So long as men can breathe, or

eyes can see,

So long lives this, and this gives

life to thee.”

Iambic pentameter

the most common metrical pattern in

poetry written in English, alternates weak

unstressed and strong stressed syllables to

make a ten-syllable line (weak

strong/weak strong/weak strong/weak

strong/weak strong).

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 dimmed,

And every fair from fair sometime declines,

By chance, or nature's changing course untrimmed:

But thy eternal summer shall not fade,

Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st,

Nor shall death brag thou wander'st in his shade,

When in eternal lines to time thou grow'st,

So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,

So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

Love

Literature and Writing

Time

Man and the Natural World

Shakespeare's sonnets are a collection of154 sonnets, dealing with themes such as thepassage of time, love, beauty and mortality,first published in a1609 quarto entitled SHAKE-SPEARESSONNETS.

Never before imprinted. (althoughsonnets 138 and144 had previously beenpublished in the 1599 miscellany ThePassionate Pilgrim).

The quarto ends with "A Lover's Complaint", anarrative poem of 47 seven-line stanzaswritten in rhyme royal.