Let's make a deal...
If you write a sonnet* of your own in response to sonnet 130 or a sonnet of your choice, then you only have to do three SOAPStone + Theme responses instead of six.
*14 lines, iambic pentameter, and ABAB CDCD EFEF GG
Let's make a deal (option two)...
Or, if you write three poems--free verse or any other form--in response to any three sonnets, then you will only have to do three SOAPStone + Theme responses instead of six. ("Dim Lady" is an example of one way to respond to Sonnet 130.)
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Sonnet 130
My mistress' eyes are laser beams
She burned the entire basketball team.
She is so ugly and so fat
She is as pretty as a vampire bat.
She ran and ran into my arms
Her looks cause lasting harm.
She has a face with a boil
It is large, almost royal.
As she tried to kidnap me
She ran into a hive of bees.
As she is allergic to these bugs,
Her face swelled unrecognizable, so I gave a hug.
She is such an ugly beast,
That I wish I was dead in the least.
Look in thy glass and tell the face thou viewest
Now is the time that face should form another;
Whose fresh repair if now thou not renewest,
Thou dost beguile the world, unbless some mother.
For where is she so fair whose unear'd womb
Disdains the tillage of thy husbandry?
Or who is he so fond will be the tomb
Of his self-love, to stop posterity?
Thou art thy mother's glass and she in thee
Calls back the lovely April of her prime;
So thou through windows of thine age shalt see,
Despite of wrinkles this thy golden time.
But if thou live, remember'd not to be,
Die single and thine image dies with thee.
Speaker: The speaker in this poem is a man looking at his girlfriend/lover/ wife and realizing she is not good looking or at all special. He seems to be insulting her, but he still loves her.
Occasion: The event that prompted this poem is that he is looking at his other and realizing that there is nothing about her that is extraordinary; he still finds her appealing.
Audience: The audience for this poem is probably the same that is reads the sonnets in his book. If one was not paying attention to it, one would not understand it. He is being funny.
Purpose: The purpose of this poem was probably to awake the person who was not reading it carefully and to make the people who were laugh. He is pointing out that through all of her quirks, he loves her.
Subject: The subject of this poem is the woman that is not so great, but somehow is loved by the author.It does not matter that she is ugly or blends in, she is his.
Tone: The tone is comical, because he is making fun of his love.
Theme: The theme of this poem is how one finds something special in their lover. She is ugly, but he find s her to be different from all.
Look at yourself and say
Find someone to love today.
In the making of this bond
nothing can be viewed as wrong.
Where is this woman who nothing can taint?
Am I supposed to be celibate (I aint)
You are like my mom,
In a good sense, it's not wrong.
You are the best in her
I see each day ever more.
I f you die alone,
You die always, the nothing zone.
Speaker: The speaker in this poem seems to be lonely, without many to talk to. He wants so much to find a soul mate, someone with whom he can mate. He looks for his mother in this person. If he dies alone, he dies definitely.
Occasion The event that prompts this is his own realization of loneliness. He cannot bear to see another day knowing that he needs to find a mate.
Audience: the writer is speaking to men mostly, telling them to find their true love. If they do not do this, they will not be able to exist after they are gone. They are advised to find the women like their mothers.
Purpose: The purpose of this was to tell people to find a true love. This matters: nothing else.
Subject: The subject of this poem is a man looking to find the woman he loves. He is looking for someone with all the great traits of his mother; he wants her to be a mother.
Tone: The tone is romantic. He want to find the one person that will make everything he does matter.
Theme: the theme of this is love, and how one cannot love oneself so much as not to marry. The best thing in life, as suggested, is that one has children with one's soul mate.
Sonnet 18
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.
You are like a day in July
Warm and wonderful, more say I?
The beaches get overcrowded,
The good things of summer are shrouded.
One starts to smell like the beach,
In the lake, attached to a leech.
The parades are crazy,
The warm weather makes one lazy.
But you are like watermelon, juicy and sweet,
Your love, I wish to keep.
Speaker: The speaker of this poem is professing his love to his lover. He compares he r to a summer's day, but she is without the faults of one.
Occasion: the occasion that prompts the writer is probably him realizing how wonderful the subject is. He is absolutely enamored of her perfection.
Audience: The audience is initeally the woman he is addressing. he wants her to know how much he loves her, and that she is the most perfect thing.
Purpose: The purpose of this poem was for the author to profess his love for this woman. 'She is so perfect that he cannot find fault.
Subject: the subject is a flawless person, who is his lover. She has all of the greatness of a season, without the flaws.
Tone: the tone of this poem is admiring: he wants he lover to realize how much he loves her.he cannot find fault.
Theme: The theme is one cannot find fault in a soul mate. One's love is flawless.
Sonnet 130
My babes eyes are not lights,
and She never has the right time.
She always wears black tights
She is not worth more then a dime.
Her hair is like steel wool,
and she never does brush it.
She eats and eats and never gets full,
When you think she is done she takes another hit.
Her hands they are big,
even bigger then a mans.
But her wonderfulness makes me want to jig.
And thos hands are made to dig.
Boy I do love her
I will bring her inscence and myrrh.
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.
Speaker: The speaker in this poem is someone who is in love and comparing their lover to the summer season.
Occaison:I think that the occaision is maybe he realizes that he loves her and sees how she relates to the summer.
Audiance: I think the audiance of this poem is the lover that it is
written about.
Purpose:The purpose of this sonnet is for the author to show his love for who ever it is he loves.
Subject: the subject of the poem is the person who the author is in love with.
Tone: I think the tone of the sonnet is loving and admiring. How the author admires his love.
Theme: The theme is love and professing your love for someone who you think is perfect for you.
That thou hast her it is not all my grief,
And yet it may be said I loved her dearly;
That she hath thee is of my wailing chief,
A loss in love that touches me more nearly.
Loving offenders thus I will excuse ye:
Thou dost love her, because thou know'st I love her;
And for my sake even so doth she abuse me,
Suffering my friend for my sake to approve her.
If I lose thee, my loss is my love's gain,
And losing her, my friend hath found that loss;
Both find each other, and I lose both twain,
And both for my sake lay on me this cross:
But here's the joy; my friend and I are one;
Sweet flattery! then she loves but me alone.
Speaker: The speaker is a person who has lost their love.
Occasion: The occasion is loosing someone that you love and missing them.
Audiance:I think the audiance is the person the speaker has lost. Or the audiance may even be for lose who have lost someone they love.
Purpose: the purpose is to show how the speaker loved this person eventhough they may have hurt him and that he doesnt want to lose them.
Subject: the subject is the person that the speaker loves.
Tone: I kind of see the tone as pleading for love and wanting to be a approved by his love.
Theme: The theme is love and losing love.
When my love swears that she is made of truth,
I do believe her though I know she lies,
That she might think me some untutored youth,
Unlearned in the world's false subtleties.
Thus vainly thinking that she thinks me young,
Although she knows my days are past the best,
Simply I credit her false-speaking tongue:
On both sides thus is simple truth suppressed:
But wherefore says she not she is unjust?
And wherefore say not I that I am old?
O! love's best habit is in seeming trust,
And age in love, loves not to have years told:
Therefore I lie with her, and she with me,
And in our faults by lies we flattered be.
Speaker: the speaker is a person who feels that loves has no time limit and that it is forever.
Occasion: Loving is forever and that you see your love as the best even when they may not be. Love makes you blind and biased.
Audiance:I think the audiance is the person who the speaker is in love with.
Purpose: to show love is timeless and that love makes you see the other person as the best when they may not be.
subject:I think the subject is once again timeless and blinding love.
Tone:The tone is loving and romantic
Theme:I think the theme is just like the subject... timeless and blinding love.
Sonnet 130
My mistress' eyes are nothing of the norm.
They are a vibrant green.
And have an awkward form.
They are nothing like I’ve ever seen.
She sits at home.
With nothing to do.
And talks on the phone.
I’ve known her since I was two.
She is unlike any other.
But is not that nice.
Neither is her mother.
Who has pet mice.
I guess she’s pretty cool.
Even when she acts like a fool.
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 damasked, 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.
Speaker- The speaker of this sonnet is a man whose significant other is ugly and flawed but still loves her and values their love.
Occasion- The occasion of this sonnet is the speakers realization of his significant others flaws.
Audience- The audience that the speaker is aiming for in this sonnet is someone who can relate to him.
Purpose- The purpose is to describe his significant other in a humorous way which in the end results in the speaker tearing his significant other’s appearance and flaws apart. Also the speaker expresses his love for her regardless of her flaws.
Subject- The subject of this sonnet is a man’s significant other.
Tone- The tone of this sonnet is humorous because the speaker is describing his significant others flaws in a mean but at the same time a jokingly manner.
Theme- Sometimes great love can exist with someone who is flawed and ugly.
Sonnet 18
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.
Speaker- A man or a woman who has had something good happen to them.
Occasion- The occasion of this sonnet appears to be a good day or a certain occurrence that has had a huge affect on the speaker’s mood.
Audience- I don’t think that the speaker of this sonnet intended to aim this sonnet for any certain audience.
Purpose- The purpose of this sonnet is to compare this good occurrence that happened to the speaker and compare it to the summer and the positive things in life. The speaker compares it to the summer because summer is happy uplifting time of year.
Subject- The subject is the positive things in life such as summer. The speaker does touch on the negative things in life such as death, but expresses how nothing could bring him down at this particular moment.
Tone- This sonnet has an uplifting tone because the speaker is saying how nothing can bring him down and ruin his good day because he seems invincible.
Theme- The theme of this sonnet is to stay positive and don’t let the negative things in life bring you down.
Sonnet 116
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.
Speaker- The speaker of this sonnet is a man who is recently married and is discovering the affects of loving someone and marriage.
Occasion- The occasion is being in love.
Audience- The intended audience of this sonnet is people who are also in love and discovering its affects. Its affects being both positive in negative as the speaker explains.
Purpose- The purpose is to explain loves affects and how soon one can fall into love. Also to explain the positive and negative affects of falling in love.
Subject- The subject of this sonnet is love and the explanation of everyone having loved at least once in their lives.
Tone- The tone of this sonnet is happy even though the speaker does express some of the negative aspects of being in love such as how quickly one can fall in love.
Theme- The theme of this sonnet is love conquers all because at the end of the sonnet the speaker says that everyone will love someone once in their life.
SHAKESPEARE’S SONNETS
John Ryan
January 3, 2008
III
SPEAKER: The speaker is a person who holds procreation at the greatest importance. He or she seems to be one who has made the mistake of not having children of their own and is trying to guide others to avoid the same mistake.
OCCASION: Something has triggered the speakers’ realization that to die without children is to lose one’s eternal image. Old age or simply a sudden enlightenment could have triggered a response such as this.
AUDIENCE: The audience seems to be both fertile men and women, most likely on the younger side of the spectrum, who are making decisions that will decide their futures.
PURPOSE: The speaker’s purpose is to reveal to the audience the importance of ensuring one’s image for all time. He or she wishes to prove to the reader that only through passing on one’s genetic inheritance can one continue to exist.
SUBJECT: Life is possible after death only in the body and soul of your offspring.
TONE: The speaker contains an urgent tone of warning. He or she speaks knowingly as if they have personally made the terrible decision to not have children.
THEME: Your children are a mirror of yourself and are your only chance at immortality.
XVII
SPEAKER: The speaker appears to be a poet who fears the future of his work and the way that it will be interpreted. The poet wonders whether or not future readers will believe the angelic vision that he captures before him.
OCCASION: The speaker has obviously come upon a figure of such beauty that he doubts whether it could ever be considered truth. In fear of not being believed, the poet does not write of the figure’s beauty but instead of the dilemma which faces him.
AUDIENCE: He appears to speak directly to the impossibly beautiful figure; however, he is indirectly speaking to future generations. He attempts to win over their trust.
PURPOSE: The purpose of the poem is to indirectly reveal to the reader the beauty of this figure without ever giving a physical description. Instead, the reader speaks of the impossibility of describing such a beauty.
SUBJECT: Beauty is sometimes best expressed by not describing it descriptively but by describing how one cannot describe it.
TONE: The speaker begins with an upset question. He is stuck with a dilemma of which he cannot solve. The poem ends, however, optimistically, with the realization that by simply announcing his problem he is solving it.
THEME: Beauty is not always best described with tasteful adjectives and clever metaphors but rather subtle indirect thoughts.
CXXX
SPEAKER: The speaker is a devoted lover, not only devoted but absolutely comfortable with all of his love’s skills and imperfections. He finds the traditional love sonnet humorous and impossible, and he has decided to honestly describe his love.
OCCASION: The speaker seems to have recently reviewed a set of romantic sonnets and realized that his love was by no means as perfect as the poet often makes love out to be. The speaker wishes to prove to the reader that perfection is not the only thing loved.
AUDIENCE: He speaks to all those who have ever been frustrated by the impossibilities that culture presents to the commoner concerning love. He speaks to all who have ever questioned the standards at which man has set love.
PURPOSE: The speaker simply wishes to remind the reader that love is not granted to those of perfection alone but to imperfect homely creatures as well.
SUBJECT: One can be beautiful without containing an abundance of clichéd metaphors.
TONE: The speaker speaks with humorous truth. He hides no imperfections and is subsequently quite believable.
THEME: Poetry can sometimes seem to restrict love to those of perfection even if such figures do not exist. Poetry is not made of stone and its rules can be bent or broken to achieve surprising effects.
LADY BIRD
Her skull withstands the weight of her great beak,
Her furrowed brow hides the brain of a fool,
The teeth are not as small as her crumpled feet,
But instead as large as a sterile mule.
Cabbage best describes the stench of this lady,
Not as offensive as a pile of trash.
She acts like a squirrel stricken with rabies,
Yet harmless even in a fitful lash.
Such dreadful thoughts you may think me a liar,
And in truth her sight does not warrant screams,
And her hand does not cause one to catch fire,
A more dreadful woman found not in dreams.
I wish not this woman a future bleak,
I must escape the woman with the beak.
Dan Aloisio
SOAPSTone + Theme responses
III
Look in thy glass and tell the face thou viewest
Now is the time that face should form another;
Whose fresh repair if now thou not renewest,
Thou dost beguile the world, unbless some mother.
For where is she so fair whose unear'd womb
Disdains the tillage of thy husbandry?
Or who is he so fond will be the tomb
Of his self-love, to stop posterity?
Thou art thy mother's glass and she in thee
Calls back the lovely April of her prime;
So thou through windows of thine age shalt see,
Despite of wrinkles this thy golden time.
But if thou live, remember'd not to be,
Die single and thine image dies with thee.
Speaker: The speaker seems to be a man proposing to a woman in somewhat of a roundabout way. This man is unafraid of the “wrinkles” of “golden time,” of old age, and wishes to marry, so that his “image” does not end with death.
Occasion: In the poem, the speaker is convincing a woman to spend her life with him. He seems set on marriage in particular, referencing “husbandry.” He also may be thinking of children, in that he talks of an “unear’d womb.”
Audience: The speaker’s intended audience is his love, the woman he wishes to marry. She is probably reluctant to marry at first, or there would be little point for the poem. She is also implied to be in the “lovely April of her prime,” which I interpret to mean youth (specifically, youthful beauty).
Purpose: The speaker’s goal is to convince this woman, the audience, to accept his hand in love and marriage. Less ostensibly, Shakespeare seems to be hinting at some of the benefits of marriage and companionship, as far as safety and security.
Subject: The idea being dealt with in the poem is the positive effects of marriage, and therefore the need to marry before “thy golden time” comes, while the “lovely April of her prime” remains.
Tone: The man does not seem desperate or needy. It is almost as if the man is trying to remind the woman of reasons to love him. He is attempting to convince her, and maybe scare here a bit by saying that dying singe, “thine image dies with thee.”
Theme: There is a general theme of the need to marriage, the benefits of such a union, and the dangers of not entering into one.
XVII
Who will believe my verse in time to come,
If it were fill'd with your most high deserts?
Though yet heaven knows it is but as a tomb
Which hides your life, and shows not half your parts.
If I could write the beauty of your eyes,
And in fresh numbers number all your graces,
The age to come would say 'This poet lies;
Such heavenly touches ne'er touch'd earthly faces.'
So should my papers, yellow'd with their age,
Be scorn'd, like old men of less truth than tongue,
And your true rights be term'd a poet's rage
And stretched metre of an antique song:
But were some child of yours alive that time,
You should live twice, in it, and in my rhyme.
Speaker: The speaker in this poem is Shakespeare himself, or at the very least, a general poet. He refers to his “papers” and asserts that, if written poorly, people in years will say that “the poet lies,” again confirming the identity of the speaker.
Occasion: The speaker is writing poetry about writing poetry. He is attempting to convey the goal and essence of the poetry he writes. This is capturing a human as more than a collection of “half your parts.”
Audience: The audience is somewhat the speaker himself. Ostensibly, the speaker is speaking to a woman about whether he can write about her in a way that would be memorable and worthwhile. However, it seems that the speaker is more talking to himself. I picture a man bent over at a desk, thinking aloud about the usefulness of his work.
Purpose: The purpose of this poem is to show what makes a poem worthwhile, or at least, a poem about women worthwhile. This, it seems, is making a “child” of the woman “alive,” so that it may “live twice…in my rhyme.”
Subject: The subject of the poem is the ways in which a poem can be written to be a lie, easily forgotten and also the idea that the poem can in fact work, and capture the essence of its subject. The subject of the poem refereed to in the poem is a woman.
Tone: The tone of the poem is initially one of frustration at the seemingly impossible task of showing a human being through words on paper. During the last two lines, however, there is a certain optimism and excitement that comes from truly capturing that essence.
Theme: The poem has a general theme of the difficulty of capturing humanity on paper and an excitement that could come from accomplishing this difficult task. This excitement stems from being somewhat of a creator, one that can make someone “live twice” if only through in “rhyme.”
XXIX
When in disgrace with fortune and men's eyes
I all alone beweep my outcast state,
And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries,
And look upon myself, and curse my fate,
Wishing me like to one more rich in hope,
Featured like him, like him with friends possessed,
Desiring this man's art, and that man's scope,
With what I most enjoy contented least;
Yet in these thoughts my self almost despising,
Haply I think on thee, and then my state,
Like to the lark at break of day arising
From sullen earth, sings hymns at heaven's gate;
For thy sweet love remembered such wealth brings
That then I scorn to change my state with kings.
Speaker: The speaker in this poem is simply someone that enjoys no incredible talent, power, or monetary wealth, but is content with “sweet love.” The speaker does not necessarily need to be a poet or an artist, but simply a partner of some kind.
Occasion: There is no event or particular happening for which this poem is written. I visualize a person violently cursing his/her fate (troubling “deep heaven with my bootless cries”) and then catching him/herself midway, realizing the greatness in their position of no particular stature. The speaker goes as far as to say that “I scorn to change my state with kings.”
Audience: The speaker does not appear to be targeting any special group or person. Again, I picture someone almost talking aloud while alone, rather than someone speaking to a group.
Purpose: The speaker does not have an agenda; he is not trying to mock the “kings” or people with “art” or “scope.” Rather, the speaker is simply having a small crisis of identity, one in which he quickly achieves. In the fourth line, this is clear, when the speaker states, “And look upon myself, and curse my fate.”
Subject: The subject of the poem is the state of a person that is self-actualizing, realizing the goodness in the situation that they are experiencing. This person is content in loving, preferring “sweet love remembered” to other forms of wealth.
Tone: The tone of the poem is initially one of deep frustration. At first, the speaker “beweep[s] my outcast state,” “trouble[s] deaf heaven with my bootless cries,” and “curse[s] my fate.” However, the poem shifts tone greatly in the eighth line, when the speaker admits that having that kind of “fortune” would result in him being “contented least” with “what I most enjoy.” From this point forward, the speaker begins to realize that his paroxysm of jealousy is baseless, that his “sweet love remembered” is better than the “state” of “kings” and other men of such “fortune.”
Theme: The underlying theme in this poem is one of appreciating and being proud of love, rather than material or other forms of wealth. As a result of his love, the speaker is in a better “state” than kings.
CXVI
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.
He never writ, and no man ever loved
For this is error, though none can prove
If love be stolid, then how can it grow?
If love be ever-fixed, then how can it fade?
How can it flow and move,
An ever-coursing river of viscous fluid,
Softly resisting its harsh terrain?
If the self is the farmer,
And emotion be his crop,
Could a new cultivator not
Reap new harvest? And Time
Indeed cultivates new men,
My conjecture I cannot prove
Mine is a search, not a mark.
CXXX
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 damasked, 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.
My girl is not a great dancer,
Though I no better,
She convulses and kicks,
I feign laughter;
She drives all over the street,
Making travel taxing;
She is too up-beat,
While I’m relaxing;
If I am ready, she be ill-prepared,
If I need more time, she needs more calm;
I self-conscious, she just stared,
She always the master of my own palm;
She does not even know that I’m such a brute,
And I can but hope she’ll be never the more astute!
CXXXVIII
When my love swears that she is made of truth,
I do believe her though I know she lies,
That she might think me some untutored youth,
Unlearned in the world's false subtleties.
Thus vainly thinking that she thinks me young,
Although she knows my days are past the best,
Simply I credit her false-speaking tongue:
On both sides thus is simple truth suppressed:
But wherefore says she not she is unjust?
And wherefore say not I that I am old?
O! love's best habit is in seeming trust,
And age in love, loves not to have years told:
Therefore I lie with her, and she with me,
And in our faults by lies we flattered be.
I can never be honest,
With my love so dear;
Better not to know,
The doubts kept too near;
If I say, with something,
You are getting away!
Then who am I,
For I too disobey;
If she thinks she be an inferior match,
She cannot know my thoughts are the same;
If I puzzle to make her happy,
She puzzles to make me tame;
Some things are better kept to oneself,
And by deception, are suspicions solved.
Sonnet 130
My lover's eyes resemble coal
Their scorched, ugly, wrinkled, old.
His mouth is thin, foaming and tight.
I fear he will try and bite.
Shoulders slouch, knees they shake,
He's so thin I fear he'll break.
Lockes, golden? they are not,
Appearing green, smells of rot.
I tend to cringe
When "it" moves my way
Carries a stench
An aura of gray.
My feet stay put although I fear,
My lover's body's growing near.
Sonnet 3
Look in thy glass and tell the face thou viewest
Now is the time that face should form another;
Whose fresh repair if now thou not renewest,
Thou dost beguile the world, unbless some mother.
For where is she so fair whose unear'd womb
Disdains the tillage of thy husbandry?
Or who is he so fond will be the tomb
Of his self-love, to stop posterity?
Thou art thy mother's glass and she in thee
Calls back the lovely April of her prime;
So thou through windows of thine age shalt see,
Despite of wrinkles this thy golden time.
But if thou live, remember'd not to be,
Die single and thine image dies with thee.
Speaker: The speaker is a man wanting to marry and procreate, but is afraid that it is too late in his life for this.
Occasion: The speaker is fearful of death and does not want to die alone. He is afraid his time is near.
Audience: The speakers audience is all those who focus too much on themselves and realize once it is too late that they need others.
Purpose: The purpose is to express to all that life is too short to spend it alone.
Subject: The subject is the idea of marriage, reproduction, and the fear of death or dying alone.
Tone: The tone is that the speaker is fearful that he has made mistakes in his life. That he was too self absorbed and that his death is upon him.
Theme: The theme is that it is important to marry and create a family, not to spend one's life alone and shallow.
Sonnet 18
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.
Speaker: The speaker is a person who is deeply in love. They compare their lover to the beauty of the summer.
Occasion: The speaker has come to the realization of how much they love the other person. The only way they find to express their feelings is through what they find most beautiful.
Audience: The speaker most likely is speaking to the one he/she loves. They are expressing also to whoever will listen the depth of their awe for their lover.
Purpose: The purpose of this poem is to let the speaker's lover understand how they really feel about them. It is so the speaker can fully let out their feelings.
Subject: The subject is a description of the speaker's perfect person.
Tone: The tone of this poem is fascination with the one the speaker loves.
Theme: The theme is being totally enthralled by another through admiration.
Sonnet 116
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.
Speaker: Is one who has been married and found actual love.
Occasion: The speaker is prompted by the idea that love does not falter. That even when it seems bad it is not as awful as it seems.
Audience: The speaker is trying to express his idea of love and commitment to those who feel the same, to the one he loves and hopefully to all who would listen.
Purpose: The purpose is to explain the unpredictability of love. That even when it seems bad or wonderful, love is what it is.
Subject: The subject is the idea of marriage, commitment and love that does not disappear through time.
Tone: There is a positive tone although the speaker is describing the negatives. It is positive because it brings a hope to the sometimes unclear things love brings.
Theme: The theme is that if love is real no matter what occurs it does not change.
17.
Who will believe my verse in time to come,
If it were fill'd with your most high deserts?
Though yet heaven knows it is but as a tomb
Which hides your life, and shows not half your parts.
If I could write the beauty of your eyes,
And in fresh numbers number all your graces,
The age to come would say 'This poet lies;
Such heavenly touches ne'er touch'd earthly faces.'
So should my papers, yellow'd with their age,
Be scorn'd, like old men of less truth than tongue,
And your true rights be term'd a poet's rage
And stretched metre of an antique song:
But were some child of yours alive that time,
You should live twice, in it, and in my rhyme.
Speaker: The speaker of this sonnet is a poet questioning the lifetime of his poetry. The poet is a man who appreciates beauty and values the importance of procreation.
Occasion: The occasion could have been frustration resulting from writing a poem. The poet may have felt unable to fully express beauty with his words in a believable fashion. The occasion also seems to be becoming the age in which one can have children, and feeling the pressure to do so.
Audience: The audiences is men and women. This sonnet forms a connection with the reader through the use of the word, “your” which makes reading it a personal experience. It also appears that this sonnet could have been directed at either a woman in particular, or women in general. The poet guarantees that one’s beauty will be lasting and preserved twice, through both poetry and the birth of a child. This idea may bring comfort to those who fear death and the idea of their existence being lost and forgotten forever.
Purpose: The purpose of this sonnet is to persuade the audience that the only way to preserve ones characteristics and beauty is to have a child. Words can last but they cannot be proved. The poet seems to want to portray the importance of having children to those who are able.
Tone: The tone is serious and persuasive, but also celebratory of life and beauty.
Theme: The theme focuses on procreation and that it is the only way to preserve one’s self and leave a part of one’s spirit behind after death. It focuses on the idea of youth and aging. Shakespeare seems to believe that one’s youth is the pinnacle and most beautiful time. A poem can capture this beauty, but it can’t be proved after the person no longer exists. Having a child replaces one’s lost youth and carries on a piece of one’s spirit and attributes in another form.
73.
That time of year thou mayst in me behold
When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang
Upon those boughs which shake against the cold,
Bare ruined choirs, where late the sweet birds sang.
In me thou see'st the twilight of such day
As after sunset fadeth in the west;
Which by and by black night doth take away,
Death's second self, that seals up all in rest.
In me thou see'st the glowing of such fire,
That on the ashes of his youth doth lie,
As the death-bed, whereon it must expire,
Consum'd with that which it was nourish'd by.
This thou perceiv'st, which makes thy love more strong,
To love that well, which thou must leave ere long.
Speaker: The speaker is a poet who is concerned with aging and the loss of youth and love.
Occasion: The occasion that spurred the idea of this poem is the realization that everyone ages and eventually youth is physically lost. An occasion that may have triggered this thought was noticing the rising and setting sun and how it relates to life. Shakespeare connects nature to his thoughts and life throughout the sonnets, and therefore nature may have inspired Shakespeare to write and think specific ideas.
Audience: The audience does not seem to be anyone in particular or written for a lover, but rather for personal purpose and reflection.
Purpose: The purpose of this sonnet is to reflect upon aging and the loss of youth. It compares aging to the passing of days and seasons, which proves that it is out of human’s hands and under the power of nature. Attributing aging to nature may bring the speaker comfort because it supports the idea that growing older is a natural process and can not be controlled.
Tone: The tone is dark and gloomy focusing on death and loss and is also romantic.
Theme: The sonnet focuses on the idea that nature is ultimately in control of our lives and youth has to be left behind eventually.
98.
From you have I been absent in the spring,
When proud-pied April, dress'd in all his trim,
Hath put a spirit of youth in every thing,
That heavy Saturn laughed and leapt with him.
Yet nor the lays of birds, nor the sweet smell
Of different flowers in odour and in hue,
Could make me any summer's story tell,
Or from their proud lap pluck them where they grew:
Nor did I wonder at the lily's white,
Nor praise the deep vermilion in the rose;
They were but sweet, but figures of delight,
Drawn after you, you pattern of all those.
Yet seemed it winter still, and you away,
As with your shadow I with these did play.
Speaker: The speaker is a young man who has recently lost his lover. He is still drawn to the idea of his lover, but is trapped in “winter” only with his thoughts.
Occasion: The occasion is the loss of a lover and facing oncoming age and the loss of youth.
Audience: This poem is directed at his lover, which is made clear in the first line. As the poem continues the loss of his lover transforms to the loss of summer and spring, which seems to represent the loss of youth and beauty. This connects his beauty and youth, but refocuses the attention on himself and his own despair.
Purpose: The intentions of this poem originally seem to be to lament over the loss of his lover, but then the purpose changes to connect the loss of love to the loss of youth. This idea is symbolized through the description of seasons.
Tone: The tone is deceivingly playful, light, and hopeful, when it is really woeful and depressing.
Theme: This sonnet portrays women as playful and sweet, but simultaneously causing death and extreme sadness. The speaker is obsessed with the idea of his lost lover and her figure, demonstrating the power women can have over men mentally.
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 damasked, 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.
Speaker: It is hard to identify the true speaker. He is man writing about his lover, although it is hard to tell whether this woman truly exists. The speaker seems to be a poet with the purpose of writing and experimenting with an unconventional sonnet.
Occasion: The occasion of this poem is realizing woman are not perfect and neither is love, and in this aspect traditional sonnets all were not honest and realistic. The occasion could also be wanting to write an unconventional version of a sonnet.
Audience: The audience is anybody who cares to read the sonnet. It seems to be aimed at a wide range of people and has a universal and relatable message.
Purpose: The purpose is to create a sonnet that is not lofty and overly romantic. It is aimed to be real and to prove that love is flawed, and beauty does not guarantee true love.
Tone: The tone is sarcastic, insulting, and honest.
Theme: This sonnet illustrates that love is not perfect and does not have to be based purely on physical features.
143.
Lo, as a careful housewife runs to catch
One of her feather'd creatures broke away,
Sets down her babe, and makes all swift dispatch
In pursuit of the thing she would have stay;
Whilst her neglected child holds her in chase,
Cries to catch her whose busy care is bent
To follow that which flies before her face,
Not prizing her poor infant's discontent;
So runn'st thou after that which flies from thee,
Whilst I thy babe chase thee afar behind;
But if thou catch thy hope, turn back to me,
And play the mother's part, kiss me, be kind;
So will I pray that thou mayst have thy 'Will,'
If thou turn back and my loud crying still.
Speaker: The speaker changes throughout the sonnet. Originally it is a narrator and onlooker and then becomes the young boy whose mother has left him to chase after a chicken.
Occasion: The occasion could have been watching this event happen and then imagining it from the perspective of the child.
Audience: The audience originally is anyone, because it is narrated like a story. When the speaker transforms into a child the sonnet seems to be directed at the mother.
Purpose: The purpose is to express the feeling of childhood abandonment. From another perspective it does not appear to be an issue, but from the child’s it is scary and devastating. Many sonnets are focused on the idea of loss and childhood and this poem connects the two, but in a different fashion than the others. It is innocent and does not involve sexual lust or a lover. It proves that loss, whether it is separation from a lover forever, a mother momentarily, or youth, is terrifying and sad.
Tone: The tone is innocent and intimate.
Theme: This sonnet deals with the feeling of loss. The simplistic scenario seems to stand for losses of other kind that may have a greater or different meaning and consequence.
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 coloured 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 turned fiend,
Suspect I may, yet 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.
Speaker: The speaker could be either a man or woman, because the poet confesses to containing both genders, at least mentally and spiritually. One can assume that the speaker is a man in continuation with the rest of the sonnets.
Occasion: At this point in the sonnets, the speaker’s ideas have become more abstract. The occasion of this poem could have been realizing and believing that the speaker contains multiple sides and even sexes. This may have become an issue in the speaker’s life.
Audience: The audience is no one in particular, only himself.
Purpose: The purpose is to explain the two conflicting sides within the speaker. The sonnet portrays women as evil in comparison to men. The purpose may be to prove that women are more dominant and cause harmful temptation. They have the power to take a body and spirit.
Tone: The tone is serious, mysterious, and solemn.
Theme: This sonnet deals with the issue of feeling a dominantly woman within oneself. The speaker believes that a male and female spirit can both exist within someone, but eventually the woman, who is portrayed as evil, will take over and suppress the man.
144 Sonnet
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 coloured 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 turned fiend,
Suspect I may, yet 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.
Speaker- The most dominant figure here seems to be a man facing the scruples of a relationship. A very self-conscious vibe is given off and there looks as if a type of support /against list is being made in his mind.
Occasion- At the time this was written there might have been a predicament presented to the speaker that brought about the two personalities that he/she possessed. This caused the assessment of bother to choose the more appealing mind-set to follow.
Audience- The direction of the poem veers towards the presenter himself/herself. The devilish aspects of this person compliment the goodness making it hard to decipher between happiness with evils or honorable will. The other possibility would be that the speaker wants to reason with the readers that either way nothing is truly accomplished with being both kind and wicked.
Purpose-If there were a certain position in this sonnet it would be not to take any position at all, because every trend has its flaws and sin always shadows the pleasant intentions.
Subject-The common question of the benefits to right vs. immoral shows its Constance through this specific sonnet. The focus point being that every perspective is both moral and immoral. “ And whether that my angel be turned fiend,
Suspect I may, yet not directly tell;”
Tone- Prevailing over most was a luring tone. The subject and Shakespeare do a fantastic job in portraying goodness as a priority and also desire as a necessity. The phrase wooing purity is discussed assuming that at many times it is much more interesting to follow in depraved ways while fully knowing that one will return to honesty.
Theme- IT’S HUMAN NATURE THAT GUIDES US TO A CORRUPT WORLD, HOWEVER THIS MAY BE STOPPED BY INVENTION.
XXVII
Weary with toil, I haste me to my bed,
The dear repose for limbs with travel tired;
But then begins a journey in my head
To work my mind, when body's work's expired:
For then my thoughts--from far where I abide--
Intend a zealous pilgrimage to thee,
And keep my drooping eyelids open wide,
Looking on darkness which the blind do see:
Save that my soul's imaginary sight
Presents thy shadow to my sightless view,
Which, like a jewel hung in ghastly night,
Makes black night beauteous, and her old face new.
Lo! thus, by day my limbs, by night my mind,
For thee, and for myself, no quiet find.
Speaker- Shakespeare could be implying either a woman or man as the prime speaker of this poem. From viewing the content this person seems to have an infatuation with the significance of dreams and why they could potentially be a better representation of a person compared to the consciousness of day.
Occasion- Many of the lines harp on the fact that this person is not well rested, and almost looks forward to dreaming. The incident that may have urged this sleeping examination, could have been an unlikable day. From the line, “For then my thoughts—from far where I abide,” the narrator makes it clear that these dreams have proven to be far more advanced than the controlled thoughts that are experienced during the day.
Audience- With the first reading there is an image created of he or she perched in bed describing the depth and substance of the dreams to someone near them, possibly a husband or wife. This mystery character appears to be quiet, yet interested as the speaker keeps reflecting.
Purpose- Shakespeare almost implies that everyone look closer at the equality of sleeping and everyday living. He wrote with such curiosity himself asking the reader to analyze their own night minds. He makes a point of emphasizing the fact that there is also just as much strain in a dream at times, just as after struggling through a day.
Subject-The main focus of the poem follows the idea of what a dream actually means and if it is simply skewed thoughts combining to form unusual images, or relatable concepts.
Tone- A very questioning aura takes over this poem. Though one can never be quite sure if Shakespeare himself created this purposely, it definitely becomes very evident to the reader. Especially in the line, “Looking on darkness which the blind to see.
Theme- Lack of exploration is a fitting matter for this poem. The spokesperson is so excited yet baffled by how different the two worlds of dreams and reality can be.
Sonnet 130
Speaker: The speaker is a male and a lover. One could say the lover is also a comedian.
Occasion: Recognizing many of his lover’s flaws and imperfections seem to prompt the writer to celebrate his lover for her and all her intricacies.
Audience: The writer does not reveal much about himself, except for his implication that he is a man who is in love with a not-so-savory woman. This could be perceived to be a public declaration of his love.
Purpose: The poet (Shakespeare) may have written this poem to reveal the beauty in imperfections. Maybe by focusing on the imperfections he wanted to show that a lover loves everything about their significant other, positive and negative.
Subject: I would say the subject is love. And I do not just mean the beauty of love and the perfections of one’s lover. The subject is of unconditional love and one’s capacity to hold it.
Tone: The tone is comical, but sincere. The man is making amusing comparisons, but he ties it together at the end with a true declaration of love.
Theme: I have alluded to the theme in the other parts of the SOAPStone. I believe that this sonnet is about the human capacity for unconditional love. How aspects to people that are inherently unappealing are appealing to one person for a totally different aspect.
Sonnet 116
Speaker: The speaker is not really identified specifically in this poem. Shakespeare does not imply any specific character, so it is safe to say that the speaker is Shakespeare.
Occasion: Shakespeare wants to tell us all about true love. It sounds like he has maybe just figured out what true love is and wants to tell everyone.
Audience: Shakespeare wants to talk to us all about love. Maybe for star-crossed lovers this poem hits close to home. I would say people who are questioning love are his audience.
Purpose: His purpose in writing this was to show what true love is. He wanted to explain that true love never goes away. It does not “alter when it alteration finds/ Or bends with the remover to remove.”
Subject: The subject is that of true love and how it one cannot choose to love or not love someone. Falling out of love is not easy to do.
Tone: Shakespeare sounds urgent. He really wants to get this off his chest. Revealing the virtues of true love is very important.
Theme: Shakespeare is pointing out the inconvenience of falling in love. He is also trying to draw the line between true love and false/superficial love.
Sonnet 133
Speaker: The speaker seems to be the same man from Sonnet 130. I am noticing a trend in these particular sonnets.
Occasion: The speaker has just found out his friend is in love with the same mistress as him. He is expressing his discontent.
Audience: The speaker is being dramatic and I believe that he is just directing this to whoever is reading it. It seems a bit theatrical to me. He is telling a story more than anything else.
Purpose: I think Shakespeare wrote this poem to create a disjointed story. These sonnets (130, 131, 132, 133, etc.) all seem to have the same characters. I think this could be another “chapter” in the story.
Subject: The subject seems to be a man’s sorrow after finding out his friend has betrayed him. He feels abandoned by his friend, his mistress and himself. He has lost control of his own emotions.
Tone: The speaker’s tone is anxious. He seems very distressed about the recent turn of events.
Theme: The poem seems to suggest that there are a lot of problems that can arise when you fall in love with someone. Sometimes someone very close to you will come in and hurt you. Love is dangerous.
SOPASTone Analysis
CXXXI
Thou art as tyrannous, so as thou art,
As those whose beauties proudly make them cruel;
For well thou know'st to my dear doting heart
Thou art the fairest and most precious jewel.
Yet, in good faith, some say that thee behold,
Thy face hath not the power to make love groan;
To say they err I dare not be so bold,
Although I swear it to myself alone.
And to be sure that is not false I swear,
A thousand groans, but thinking on thy face,
One on another's neck, do witness bear
Thy black is fairest in my judgment's place.
In nothing art thou black save in thy deeds,
And thence this slander, as I think, proceeds.
Speaker: The speaker in this poem is a man that is in awe of the sheer “normalness” of his wife/girlfriend/lover. He sees her as nothing comparable; nothing special. He compares her to inanimate things. This could represent the speaker being more attached to physical things than people.
Occasion: The thing that acts as a catalyst for this poem was probably an event where he was looking at the woman in comparison to the outside world. This forced him to compare the two things. He is realizing that nothing about her is special, yet still seems to find something attractive about her.
Audience: The audience in this poem is not very specific. However, it seems as though he is aiming to confuse the reader. If one did not carefully read the poem, it would bear a completely different meaning.
Purpose: I think that the purpose of this poem is to show the comparison of people and material objects, and how they compare. Shakespeare seems to be stressing the idea that all material objects are, for the most rather concrete, compare to a person who has mixed feelings.
Tone: The tone of this sonnet is very honest; near insulting. It is also comical.
Theme: The theme in this seems to be following the whole “diamond in the rough” idea. Even though this woman is not in comparison to other material objects that he encounters in his every day life, there is still something in her that a material object can not fulfill.
CXIX
What potions have I drunk of Siren tears,
Distilled from limbecks foul as hell within,
Applying fears to hopes, and hopes to fears,
Still losing when I saw myself to win!
What wretched errors hath my heart committed,
Whilst it hath thought itself so blessed never!
How have mine eyes out of their spheres been fitted,
In the distraction of this madding fever!
O benefit of ill! now I find true
That better is by evil still made better;
And ruined love, when it is built anew,
Grows fairer than at first, more strong, far greater.
So I return rebuked to my content,
And gain by ill thrice more than I have spent.
Speaker: The speaker in this poem is a person who is contemplating the ideas of fate, emotions and destiny. It seems to be a very personal, pronounced sonnet.
Occasion: The occasion of this sonnet; the thing that prompts the writer to scribe it, seems to be some sort of setback. He is questioning what he did to fail, and how what he did in his past caused this. This setback acts as a catalyst for him to realize the virtue of second chances.
Audience: The audience, again, does not come off being very specific. His audience seems, almost, to be himself.
Purpose: The purpose of this sonnet is to demonstrate the idea of failed attempts- love, emotion, etc- and how a predestined win that turns to failure can act as a benefit.
Tone: The tone of this sonnet starts off being very depressing; morbid also. Throughout it, however, it increasingly becomes more hopeful. A sort of humbled tone can be seen.
Theme: The theme is centering on the idea of destiny, fate, and the repercussions that can come from such a belief.
CXX
That you were once unkind befriends me now,
And for that sorrow, which I then did feel,
Needs must I under my transgression bow,
Unless my nerves were brass or hammer'd steel.
For if you were by my unkindness shaken,
As I by yours, you've passed a hell of time;
And I, a tyrant, have no leisure taken
To weigh how once I suffered in your crime.
O! that our night of woe might have remembered
My deepest sense, how hard true sorrow hits,
And soon to you, as you to me, then tendered
The humble salve, which wounded bosoms fits!
But that your trespass now becomes a fee;
Mine ransoms yours, and yours must ransom me.
Speaker: The speaker in this poem is a friend, or an acquaintance, who is reflecting on the loss of a friendship, and focusing on the ideas of suffering and the repercussions that come from a life of such.
Occasion: The event that prompted this sonnet is some sort of event where someone showed “unkindness.” However, the poet seems to like, or be fascinated by the idea that this person was unkind: “That you were once unkind befriends me now”
Audience: On first inspection, one may think that the audience in this poem is the person that did some sort of “unkind” act. However, I do not think this to be the case. I picture this sonnet being more of a soliloquy than anything; said alone, though focused towards a specific person.
Purpose: The purpose of this poem is to demonstrate how one person can be so attached to one person, so close, and how this is viewed after the friendship ends.
Tone: The tone seems like a mix between revengeful and pitiful. The poet may seem like he wants revenge on this person that he used to be close to, but one could also take it as if he wants revenge on himself for not recognizing it.
Theme: That true sorrow can sometimes be the best method of reflection.
Notes:
1. All of you sonneteers try your hand at iambic pentameter!
2. Sonnet 3 & the beautiful young man
The audience--the "you" or "thou"--seems to be man not a woman. In the second quatrain the speaker asks two rhetorical questions that reveal this.
First, the speaker says: what woman is so beautiful ("fair") that she would reject your sexual advances? (Of course he doesn't say "sexual advances"; he says "Tillage of thy husbandry" which is a farming metaphor. One tills--or plows--the soil to prepare it for seed. The metaphor makes me blush a bit when I put it that way. Then "hubandry" is a pun. It's literal meaning in this context is "farming" (look it up) but it also reminds us of "husbands": the men who marry and impregnate a wife.
The second rhetorical question that reveals that the "thou" is a guy says, essentially, "Who is so full of himself that he'd rather die than make babies with someone else?" Rhetorically the speaker is asking the guy: hook up with someone and have kids who will outlast you; otherwise you'll "stop posterity" & be "tomb" of your own "self-love". (One way--albeit an imperfect way--to evade death is to have children so at least a part of us lives on.)
Then we find out that the audience--the "thou"--is a young guy because the speaker says he'll later look back & see now as "thy golden time"--the good years (&, the speaker implies, the time to make littluns). & if, however, he dies without making babies his image will die with him.
3. Sonnet 18
Again, here it's as likely--or more likely--that the "thee" is a man. Two bits of evidence. This sonnet is part of the sequence that includes Sonnet 3. (See above.) & "thee" is compared to summer who is personified as a man: "his gold complexion dimmed."
4. Sonnet 42 (That thou hast her it is not all my grief)
The speaker is talking to the man (woman?) who now "has" a woman that the speaker "loved...dearly." But the speaker says that the fact that "you" have "her" is not nearly as bad as the fact that she has you: "That she hath thee is of my wailing chief,/A loss in love that touches me more nearly."
Yikes! Does anyone know the great New Order song "Bizarre Love Triangle"?
Then the speaker gets into the logic of this love. The "you" loves "her" because the speaker loves her. Then "she" loves the "you" also for the speaker's "sake." So really then "you" (the friend) & "I" (the speaker) are the same.
But I can't help but read the phrase "Sweet Flattery!" as deeply ironic as in "Oh, great, she loves you for my sake, but I'm the one left all alone."
Notice how logical & long metaphorical games are a major part of the poetry of this period. (If he loves her because I love her & if she loves him because I do then really they both love me.)
This is lost a bit in most of what we think of as *expressive* poetry, in which we pour out our feelings.
The Elizabethans--and still to this day British artists like Morrissey-- are interested in exploring both the sympathetic truth and the absurdity of our feelings. (Joyce did this too, no?)
1. Sonnet 116
"Love is not love/Which alters when it alteration finds"
Real love doesn't change ("alter") just because the object of love changes (i.e. grows old, decays, etc.)
Notice the delight in language here. The repetition of "alters/ alteration". Again we see the logical play.
Also notice that love is personified; love "finds" alterations. Isn't it literally the person in love who finds the changes in the beloved? But her W.S. uses the figure of speech called personification to say it is love that finds the alterations & doesn't change.
The rest of the poem is filled with metaphors for that which is unchanging (like love)--an ever-fixed mark & a star--and versus that which does change--rosy lips & cheeks which are subject to the grim reaper (the "sickle" of "time".)
Love is not time's fool. Time uses it's sickle to cut down our looks--lips & cheeks--but cannot touch true love. (Again notice the personification and how it is used to further the poem's logic.)
2. Sonnet 17
John Ryan has a good discussion of this poem (XVII) below.
But I want to consider the tone. Is the speaker being completely forthright and sincere here? I think he's smirking. Your so beautiful that if I tried to describe you no one would believe me. So I won't do it because people will think I'm a liar in a "poet's rage" which is bad for me and for your posterity (i.e. their memory of you). You're beauty will have a better chance of living on if you have a child: "But were some child of yours alive that time,/You should live twice; in it and in my rhyme."
This is a game of flattery played with the speaker's beloved & a game of poet's reputation played with the reader. It's a fun game.
3. Dan's take on sonnet 29 (XXIX) below is excellent.
4. Sonnet 138 (CXXXVIII) This an essay in playful tone waiting to be written! Look at Dan's poem response below.
& here's what Glenn Everett says:
"First quatrain; note the puns and the intellectual games: [I know she lies, so I believe her so that she will believe me to be young and untutored]"
"Second quatrain: [Well of course I know that she doesn't really think I'm young, but I have to pretend to believe her so that she will pretend that I'm young]"
"Third quatrain: [so why don't we both fess up? because love depends upon trust and upon youth" (Mr. Cook's note: & if we admitted we've been deceiving ourselves and each other about our youth (& looks)--even though we both **know** we've been deceiving ourselves and each other) then our love would die...
"Final couplet, and resolution: [we lie to ourselves and to each other, so that we may flatter ourselves that we are young, honest, and in love]. Note especially the puns." Mr. Cook's note: "lie"!!! The lie down together--have sex--and lie together--deceive each other.
5. Sonnet 1
The theme here is actually quite similar to sonnet 3. The speaker is mad at the "you" for keeping his beauty for himself instead of having children.
Ben, Willie, Annie, Avery
I'll comment on the poems you wrote about as soon as I'm able.
I think I've made some comments on all the other poems that you guys have written about. Let me know if I've missed one.
My goal is to give some feedback here because we won't be able to cover all of this on Monday.
Remember on the exam you'll need to have a sonnet memorized & you'll need to write a bit about that sonnet too.
Erin Stockman
January 3, 2008
Sonnet 1
Speaker: The speaker in the poem is a narrator who feels betrayed. He now sees the cruelty in everything around him.
Occasion: The speaker has discovered that the one he loves does not love him in return; there is another man that his crush loves.
Audience: The audience of this poem is anyone who suffers; the speaker curses his love to bring pain to the world, "Making famine where abundance lies." She is the cause of all unhappiness.
Purpose: The purpose of the poem is to portray in words a broken heart. To express irrational thoughts in response to a let down.
Subject: The subject of the poem is the strength of love. The speaker discusses whether or not love has the power to cause pain for the entire world.
tone: The speaker is angry, he has been let down and sees his love in a negative light.
Theme: The theme is the cruelty of love in a world dominated by forced marriages and social class limitations.
Sonnet 3
Speaker: The speaker is an individual noting old age and thinking about the future.
Occasion: The speaker/narrator sees or is thinking about old age, about an elderly person sees the effects of age on their face reflected in a mirror.
Audience: The audience is the young, those who still have time to think about their future.
Purpose: The speaker is warning the reader of their future selves, prompting the reader to think about what they want for themselves and whether or not their mothers would be proud of them.
Subject: The subject is what people regret not doing when they are young.
tone: The tone of the poem is ironic, talks of faces affected by age and whether or the speakers image should be allowed to continue.
Theme: The speaker is noting that as people age they begin to regret and that if you don't have children your "image" does not continue.
Sonnet 17
Speaker: The speaker in this poem is most likely a man, he is discussing the love he has for a woman. He knows that his time on earth is not eternal and wonders if his love will be remembered or believed, "Who will believe my verse in time to come."
Occasion: The speaker is hoping that the words he writes will linger longer than his mortal life. He worries that the world will not believe the sincerity of his voice.
Audience: The audience his the speakers lover, he is trying to explain to her how he is trying to put to words his love but cannot find a fresh way to do so.
Purpose: The purpose is to show the mortality of love, future readers of the speaker's poem may not be able to grasp the true meaning the narrator intended. The rhyming couplet at the end of the sonnets suggests one manner in which the speaker love's life may continue: through her children.
Subject: The subject is preserving love and life. Bodies die and the meanings of words are forgotten.
tone: The tone is very sincere, the speaker is trying to find a way in which his love can be immortalized.
Theme: The theme is immortality. The speaker realizes that modern man is skeptical, "The age to come would say, 'This poet lies; Such heavenly touches ne'er touch'd earthly faces.'"
Sonnet 98
Speaker: The speaker is a lover, he describes missing his loves companionship. The one he loves may not know him as he talks of imagining images in her shadow.
Occasion: The speaker wishes to express he love in current times, how he feels winter when it is spring.
Audience: The speaker is speaking to his love. The speaker is either chasing a forbidden love under the shadow of social class or is literally following her.
Purpose: The purpose of the poem is for the speaker to express his imagination and how it is ever tied to the thoughts of his love.
Subject: The subject is the work of the speaker's imagination in response to the image of the speaker's love.
tone: The tone is optimistic, the speaker feels winter now but may feels spring when he is with his love.
Theme: The theme is complete captivation. The speaker comes up with many creative ways to refer to his love.
Sonnet 127
Speaker: The speaker is a man, he is discussing his lover. He is content with loving a "black" lady.
Occasion: The creation of this poem may have been inspired by history doubt of the beauty of black, "In the old age black was not counted fair."
Audience: The audience is anyone who wonders why the speaker could love a dark woman with "raven black" eyes. The speaker is trying to justify his point of view.
Purpose: The purpose is for the speaker to express his opinion on black and how he believes using makeup is false.
Subject: The subject is the literal defacing of beauty with cosmetics, and the speaker dark love.
tone: The tone is ironic, the speaker notes that black was not considered beautiful, but now ladies in mourning are considered attractive.
Theme: The theme is what is and is not in style, according to the narrator dark ladies or ladies in mourning are in style while they were avoided in the past.
Sonnet 130
Speaker: The speaker is a lover discussing the faults in the one he loves.
Occasion: The speaker notes the defeats in his love, but is content with her overall.
Audience: The audience is the speaker, he is admitting to himself how his love is not perfect, but through self-discovery he realizes that deep down he is happy with her.
Purpose: The purpose of the poem is for the poet to self-actualize and admit to human imperfection.
Subject: The subject is the oddness of love, how the speaker loves what is considered ugly.
tone: The tone is sincere, the speaker seems to believe what he is saying about what he loves.
Theme: The theme is human imperfection, how people can strive to be pure and perfect but can still be happy when they are not.
6 S.O.A.P.S.Tone's
Sonnet 17
Who will believe my verse in time to come,
If it were filled with your most high deserts?
Though yet heaven knows it is but as a tomb
Which hides your life, and shows not half your parts.
If I could write the beauty of your eyes,
And in fresh numbers number all your graces,
The age to come would say 'This poet lies;
Such heavenly touches ne'er touched earthly faces.'
So should my papers, yellowed with their age,
Be scorned, like old men of less truth than tongue,
And your true rights be termed a poet's rage
And stretched metre of an antique song:
But were some child of yours alive that time,
You should live twice, in it, and in my rhyme.
Speaker: A person who seems to speak as an almost father figure, giving advice to another.
Occasion: Possibly looking upon the person whom the speaker is talking to, and giving him advice.
Audience: To young men, to inform them about the importance of having children.
Purpose: To inform the young man of the importance of having a child, which is a means of living on as said in the last 2 lines.
Subject: A young man who has on child.
Tone: The speaker seems to speak very seriously, which is meant to emphasize the importance of it.
Theme: That we are able to live on past our own death, and that we live on through our offspring.
Sonnet 29
When in disgrace with fortune and men's eyes
I all alone beweep my outcast state,
And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries,
And look upon myself, and curse my fate,
Wishing me like to one more rich in hope,
Featured like him, like him with friends possessed,
Desiring this man's art, and that man's scope,
With what I most enjoy contented least;
Yet in these thoughts my self almost despising,
Haply I think on thee, and then my state,
Like to the lark at break of day arising
From sullen earth, sings hymns at heaven's gate;
For thy sweet love remembered such wealth brings
That then I scorn to change my state with kings.
Subject: A man who has lost much recently, but is once again given hope by thinking of his lover.
Occasion: An event that caused this man's sorrow state. It must have been very crippling for him, since only the thoughts of his lover can bring him back.
Purpose: To show the power of the man's love for his lover.
Subject: The man's sorrow state and how muhc it has affected him.
Tone: Dark towards the beginning, but hopeful at the end.
Theme: That love can overcome even the most crippling events.
Sonnet 42
That thou hast her it is not all my grief,
And yet it may be said I loved her dearly;
That she hath thee is of my wailing chief,
A loss in love that touches me more nearly.
Loving offenders thus I will excuse ye:
Thou dost love her, because thou know'st I love her;
And for my sake even so doth she abuse me,
Suffering my friend for my sake to approve her.
If I lose thee, my loss is my love's gain,
And losing her, my friend hath found that loss;
Both find each other, and I lose both twain,
And both for my sake lay on me this cross:
But here's the joy; my friend and I are one;
Sweet flattery! then she loves but me alone.
Speaker: A man who has lost his former beloved to another man.
Occasion: The Speaker's wife has been "stolen" from him by another man, and she no longer loves the Speaker.
Purpose: To convince the reader that the Speaker is over his former love.
Subject: Love. The love the Speaker had for his lover, the love that she didn't have for him, and the love that she has for her new lover.
Tone: The Speaker seems to have a hopeful tone, though it is clear it may not be sincere.
Theme: That love lost is hard to get over, and can simply not be brushed away by telling yourself lies.
Sonnet 147
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 expressed;
For I have sworn thee fair, and thought thee bright,
Who art as black as hell, as dark as night.
Speaker: A man who has gone mad over past events.
Occasion: The Speaker has realized that his lover's love is harming him rather than helping him, and though he realizes this, cannot turn away from her.
Purpose: To show that love is not always a happy thing, it can cause great pain.
Subject: The man's apparent madness, and his reflection on his lover's love.
Tone: Dark, with an added sense of hopelessness.
Theme: That love can hurt as well as heal.
Sonnet 3
Look in thy glass and tell the face thou viewest
Now is the time that face should form another;
Whose fresh repair if now thou not renewest,
Thou dost beguile the world, unbless some mother.
For where is she so fair whose unear'd womb
Disdains the tillage of thy husbandry?
Or who is he so fond will be the tomb
Of his self-love, to stop posterity?
Thou art thy mother's glass and she in thee
Calls back the lovely April of her prime;
So thou through windows of thine age shalt see,
Despite of wrinkles this thy golden time.
But if thou live, remember'd not to be,
Die single and thine image dies with thee.
Speaker: Again, possibly a father figure giving advice to a young man about having children.
Occasion: A young man concerned about his legacy.
Purpose: To show how important children are to one's legacy, since it says that " Die single and thine image dies with thee."
Subject: Children, one's legacy in the world after they die.
Tone: Serious.
Theme: By having children we extend our own lives, since we live on through them.
Sonnet 130
1. My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun;
2. 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 damasked, 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.
Speaker: A man who is realizing his love is not perfect, but he still loves her.
Occasion: The man looking upon his lover, and reflecting on their relationship.
Purpose: To show that love is more thna physical attraction.
Subject: The mistress, the man's lover.
Tone: Comical and ironic due to the fact he is saying that she is not all these things that a true lover is supposed to be.
Theme: That even thought your lover may not be perfect, love is still possible.
Sonnet VII
Speaker: Someone who has grown old and is now reflecting on life
Occasion: The speaker is reaching the end of his/her lifetime
Audience: Anyone who ages
Purpose: to forwarn that one needs an heir to be remembered
Subject: How the rise and fall of the sun mimicks a person's life
Tone: The speaker uses an awe-inspiring tone to relate the grandeur of life
Theme: The process of life and the relation of young and old
Sonnet X
Speaker: Someone who believes love to be the greatest of human emotions
Occasion: the audience member has denied love
Audience: Someone who is loved but does not love anyone; the speaker speaks directly to him/her
Purpose: To change the outlook of the audience regarding love and hate
Subject: Love and hate
Tone: Somewhat angry as the speaker does not approve of the beliefs of the person being addressed
Theme: Human emotion
Sonnet XIII
Speaker: A father telling his son of his love for him
Occasion: The speaker wants his son to prepare for the decay of life
Audience: The speaker's son
Purpose: To announce the speaker's love
Subject: Procreation as a continuance of life and memory
Tone: loving, the speaker loves his son and wants the family to endure
Theme: Love and family
Sonnet Response to Sonnet XIX
Come after me you may, old time, yet fail
For mine is not within your reach or sight
For I stray not from youth's eternal trail
Should darkness live, then I command the night
Yet all around I see the world grow old
The bird that once flew high now takes to ground
Dark ash from flame once bright, now grey and cold
Old space and time that kill without a sound
How dare old time destroy what I have still
That which I loved has died but I live on
With loss of love I find I've lost my will
I've had my time and now my time is gone
Though I am cast down from my feet and throne
My words shall thrive for they are cast in stone
Sonnet 116:
Speaker: a man who believes he knows the nature of unwavering love. He is optimistic, charismatic, and completely sure of his conclusions.
Occasion: Someone has possibly questioned the nature of love, and he is passionately defending the integrity of the emotion.
Audience: This sonnet is directed to those less certain of his belief – it is attempting to persuade a cynic and encourage a supporter.
Purpose: To defend the permanent nature of love (see audience)
Subject: The subject of this sonnet is eternal love, which is constant and unalterable.
Tone: The tone of this sonnet is persuasive, sure, and optimistic. It is aggressively romantic and reaching to be uncompromised.
Theme: The idea that, in a world known for constant change and evolution, something beautiful is able to transcend and remain permanent.
Sonnet 130:
Speaker: The speaker strikes me as a man thoroughly in love with his mistress, despite the fact that she seems undesirable. He focuses on physical flaws, but also comments on his lady’s beauty that cannot be defined (how her voice is more pleasurable than music to his accustomed ears).
Occasion: The speaker is recognizing that his mistress is flawed, but is proclaiming his love for her.
Audience: I see the possibility of two specific audiences for this work; the first being a listening audience, as he defends his love to another who cannot fathom it. The second is more of a soliloquy, as he verbalizes his amazement that he could love such a creature to no audience but himself.
Purpose: The purpose of this sonnet is for the speaker to arrive at the idea that, in spite of everything, he is capable of loving this woman, because he has become accustomed to her and has accepted her flaws.
Subject: His mistress, who is less than physically desirable.
Tone: The tone of the speaker is honest, satirical, humorous, and playful – like a man completely comfortable with his subject.
Theme: Once again, there is the permanence and inexplicability of love. The idea that inner beauty can be uncovered, often by unconventional means - such as exploring all the reasons for not loving her, but arriving at the notion of love anyway.
Sonnet 42:
Speaker: A man who is trying desperately to excuse the infidelity of his mistress – who has found love with another man. The speaker seems to trying to console himself, adjusting his beloved’s affair so it was only a necessary act, instead of a betrayal. But he also falters from this “chivalrous” waiver as he takes to anger at such unfaithfulness.
Occasion: The occasion of this sonnet is that the speaker has just uncovered the infidelity of his lady, and is trying to justify it and appear as if he is unhurt by the act.
Audience: The audience of this poem is anyone who will listen to his justification; the speaker is heralding out his viewpoint, and trying to persuade anyone who will listen (and himself) that he has not been hurt by such a betrayal.
Purpose: The speaker’s purpose seems to be to offer his forgiveness to both his lady and her new suitor, but this message gets interrupted a few times as jealousy enters him, still frustrated and hurt by the unfaithfulness.
Subject: The affair itself – and now the speaker’s forgiveness and anger – is the subject of this poem.
Tone: The tone of this sonnet teeters between forced rationality and calmness (as he offers his forgiveness) and uncontrollable jealousy and need for revenge (as the speaker still feels the hurt of betrayal).
Theme: The theme of this sonnet – as a whole work – seems to be that, while forgiveness can often be wanted by all parties involved, such betrayal will leave the victim angry with jealousy; a human emotion that cannot be controlled.
Response to Sonnet 98:
A Short Rap.
Just like my homes, Bill Withers said,
There ain’t no sunshine when she is dead
Oh, my B, chu know I’m meaning gone
My girl, she’s been gone fo’ far too long
Like Star Jones wit out her coffee cake,
I stay in bed, I stay awake
And as the sun jump starts the day
And spring it starts, I stay away
I ain’t the boy I was when I’s a chil’
I wait fo’ you now, I’d wait a while
Justa see ya come back wit dat slammin’ smile.
Like da Proclaimers, I’d walk 5-hund-o mile
But girl, all I got is dis picture of yo’ face
My memories here, what we had in this place
It ain’t enough for no man to hold
You must be January, babe, cuz you got’s me cold.
Response to Sonnet 12:
Haiku and Theme Analysis
Measure time in grays
Or creases in the youth’s skin
Ev’rything withers.
Sonnet 12 – One of the more famous of Shakespeare’s sonnets, focuses upon the theme of time and progression. First, it comments on the life cycles of the natural world, then turns the focus onto the human itself, as the speaker questions, why should I be any different? This poem is realizing mortality, realizing that there is a timetable for the living, and realizing its inescapability.
Response to Sonnet 17:
Free-verse poem
With no line left
To mark the lines
of your present face
I will be scorned a lovesick liar
Silver tongued, not blessed in silver.
I say
Leave me proof to
lend me legitimacy
For no one would ever believe
The current beauty I hold.
With you,
With me,
With my prose.
John Ryan realized that he could not write a sonnet, so instead he wrote some easier poetry.
LADY BIRD (In response to sonnet 130)
Her skull withstands the weight of her great beak,
Her furrowed brow hides the brain of a fool,
The teeth are not as small as her crumpled feet,
But instead as large as a sterile mule.
Cabbage best describes the stench of this lady,
Not as offensive as a pile of trash.
She acts like a squirrel stricken with rabies,
Yet harmless even in a fitful lash.
Such dreadful thoughts you may think me a liar,
And in truth her sight does not warrant screams,
And her hand does not cause one to catch fire,
A more dreadful woman found not in dreams.
I wish not this woman a future bleak,
I must escape the woman with the beak.
AT THE TOP OF THE STAIRS (in response to sonnet 3)
The wealthy old man wanted nothing more,
He sat crumpled lonely at the top of the stairs,
At the top of the stairs behind the dark oak door,
He sat crumpled and lonely without any care.
The old man’s face was aged, quite weathered,
He was bound not by means of blood or money,
The old man’s face was creased like leather,
He sat alone, old, decrepit, not funny.
Selfishness created this rich old man,
Birthed from the womb of arrogance and greed,
This young bachelor bought his land,
God be thanked this old man did not breed.
He sat crumpled and lonely at the top of the stairs,
The old man’s face was aged quite weathered,
God be thanked being so wise and so fair,
This old lonely man would be forgotten forever.
DUST (In response to Sonnet 17)
Everyone will turn to dust,
Turn to dust and gone forever,
Weakened like iron aged with rust
Everyone be gone together,
What will the new breed think,
Of wasted words written once?
Will the new breed even blink,
Reading words written once?
Will meaning age with the writer
The writer that wrote the meaning clear
Will the meaning turn darker, brighter?
Will the reader feel joy or fear?
Everyone will turn to dust,
The reader will think what he wishes
Wishes what he thinks he must
But even he will turn to dust.
Sonnet 130
Speaker- The speaker of the poem is someone who is portraying the negative view of his mistress.
Occasion- He seems to be showing that there is nothing special about her. Even though she may not be beautiful he still has love for her.
Audience- The audience is people with similar situations, that have a personal relationship with the poem.
Purpose- To prove that he can joke about his lovers flaws, but there is still love.
Subject- The subject of the poem is the man’s lover.
Tone- The tone seems to be humorous. He makes fun of his lover but at the same time shows that he still loves her.
Theme- Even though the outside appearance isn’t attractive love can still exist.
Sonnet 18
Speaker- Someone happy who has fallen in love.
Occasion- The presence of the weather has seemed to spark the feelings of the speaker
Audience- I don’t believe that the speaker was looking for a primary audience, it was just a burst of feeling that he had.
Purpose- To compare the speakers lover to the greatness of a summers day.
Subject- To show how the speaker is memorized by the lover. Even with some of the slight downfalls of summer his lover still pursues to be amazing.
Tone- The tone is extremely happy and cheerful, he j can’t keep it all within himself.
Theme- The theme is very positive.
Sonnet 138
Speaker- The speaker is someone that knows that his love is based on a lie.
Occasion- The speaker seems to be contemplating if he should even be with is lover.
Audience- People that can sympathize with him and understand his situation.
Purpose- To figure out what he should do about his lover, “to lie” with her or not.
Subject- The lover lies to herself about the speaker being better than he is.
Tone- The tone is negative, he is putting himself down by saying his lover is lying when she thinks fondly of him.
Theme- The theme is not thinking highly of yourself, and actually looking at who you truly are as a person.
Sonnet 18
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.
Speaker: In the sonnet the speaker recites the poem in a loving, memorized way as he describes a woman whom he loves. He seems consumed by this woman and compares her to all the beautiful things in the world. The comparison of beauty to the simple, yet, beautiful objects in the environment provides the sonnet with much emotion. Since most of his references are connected to summer it is easy to believe this is a blooming romance which has caused him to have the uncontrollable feelings might one have in the beginning of a relationship.
Occasion: What prompts this sonnet to occur seems to be a new relationship as summer begins. This seems so because summer plays his inspiration in the sonnet as he draws many of his comparisons. References such as, “ and summer’s lease hath all too short a date” and “ by chance, or nature’s changing course untrimmed: but thy eternal summer shall not fade.” The reassurance that although her qualities are as that of summer, they are not temporary as seasons are.
Audience: The audience to which the speaker is reciting the poem to is the woman that the poem is about. His direct language makes it clear that he is speaking to her describing his adoration and love to her.
Purpose: The purpose of the sonnet is for the speaker to release his emotions with words. The sonnet tells the woman all that he is feeling about her through an artistic way.
Tone: The sonnet is written in a light, happy way. The admiration he has for her literally translate on paper. His comparison of the warmth of summer and all the golden colors form a real picture of her in the reader’s head. It is as if when one reads the poem you can feel the butterflies in the speaker’s tone.
Theme: The theme of the sonnet appears to be lover and the beginning of a relationship as expressed by the speaker. All of his emotions seem to be bottled up and almost like he can no longer take it. He uses his words to express it and release it all. The sonnet implies that the essence of the poem and the beauty of the woman will life forever.
Would you like to know the truth of all your beauty?
A look in your eyes takes my breath away
I am thankful everyday that we met in May
The time we spend together never lasts too long
Unlike those humid summer days that are never gone
I am glad your SPF 60 works well
That way, you’ll always be looking real swell
If one day a wage at the beach takes you out
You’ll still be looking fly without a doubt.
You’ll always have that awesome golden tan
Even if it that isn’t nature’s plan
You and I are going to be something that lasts forever
You’ll never get away from me, never.
Sonnet 46
My eyes and heart are in a constant battle,
My brain is left in a constant rattle
Both look for different things;
My eyes witness what life brings
While my heart is confused my silly things
It cannot see other’s lie,
While my eyes watches them die.
Both have reasonable doubt;
Leaving my brain confused from working it all out
The eyes, however, can describe a person’s personality,
If they are shifty and small it implies low morality
I suppose we’ll never know which one is really right,
And life’s entire mission will be to not let them fight
My eyes protects me from everything around,
While my heart will be the greats let down
A lifelong question will always occur;
To trust your eyes
Or follow feelings that’ll make you cry
Speaker: The speaker in the sonnet is describing a conflict of heart and mind. He is caught in a situation of where he does not know what to follow; what his heart feels or what his eyes see. The sonnet describes a classic scenario of the confusion your heart and eyes ( connected to the mind) are seeing and feeling opposite things.
Occasion: The event that causes this sonnet is a dilemma in which the speaker does not know what to do. A situation between an outer and internal problem.
Audience: The audience seems to be the speaker working things out with himself. He is having internal conflicts and talking to himself hoping he can find out if his heart or eyes are more valuable in the situation.
Purpose: The purpose of the sonnet was to solve the conflict. He is evaluating which would be more trustworthy to follow and repercussions for each that he chooses in order to find a balance between both his eyes and heart.
Subject: The subject of the sonnet is the concentration of the heart and eyes, They are thoroughly analyzed by the speaker for their disabilities.
Tone: The sonnet has a serious tone as the speaker describes this confusing situation.
Theme: The theme of the sonnet is the allusion or decision of trust. In the sonnet the speaker tries to trust himself, but cannot when internally he has doubt, He cannot make a choice when he does not even have confidence in himself and influences of his actions.
My girls eyes are a million times brighter than the sun,
And her red lips are known to stun
Her skin is whiter than an my bedroom wall,
While her aging décolleté tells me I’m in for the long haul
She has black wires as hair,
Which will never lead me to have another affair
She’s got all kinds of color in her cheeks,
That its hard to believe her breath would reek
Like a perfume at a refined boutique
When she speaks my heart flutters,
She leaves me wanting to stutter
I have never see a woman for stunning,
The goodness Odyns got nothing on my honey
You can hear her coming yards away,
She stole my heart that way
I know I am lucky and love is rare,
But she is something I wished for in a prayer
Speaker: The speaker in the poem is describing a woman who he loves with unusual comparisons.
Occasion: What causes this sonnet to occur is his love for a woman who’s unique beauty has made the speaker mesmerized. The unusual comparison who a deep, yet, unusual love.
Audience: The audience is the reader who sees the love the speaker has unfold with the witty sonnet.
Purpose: The sonnet has an off purpose describing the basic feelings one gets in love, but pared with the unusual references, such as, “ If hair be wires, black wires grow on her head” and “and in some perfumes is there more delight than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.” The sonnet becomes humorous with these comparisons.
Subject :The subject in the sonnet is the mistress the speaker is describing.
Tone: The speaker has an unusually serious tone throughout the sonnet, even when ridiculous things are being said. The tone never appears humorous, just the intelligently created language. It is obvious in the poem that the speaker is in complete seriousness when he describes his love for her and how her beauty will be eternal.
Theme: The theme of the sonnet is admiration for a loved one. The refreshingly, light way in which the speaker describes the enchantment in her beauty is different from your average love poem. It is a good balance because Shakespeare is never light on emotion and this poem is one of his exceptions.
Kacie O'Maley
Sonnet 30
When to the sessions of sweet silent thought
I summon up remembrance of things past,
I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought,
And with old woes new wail my dear time's waste:
Then can I drown an eye, unused to flow,
For precious friends hid in death's dateless night,
And weep afresh love's long since cancell'd woe,
And moan the expense of many a vanish'd sight:
Then can I grieve at grievances foregone,
And heavily from woe to woe tell o'er
The sad account of fore-bemoaned moan,
Which I new pay as if not paid before.
But if the while I think on thee, dear friend,
All losses are restor'd and sorrows end.
SPEAKER: The speaker seems to be a man looking back on his life at an older age.
OCCASION: The man is looking back on his life and thinking about the sorrows in his life and all of the things, people, and events that he has passed in his life. At the end when he finally thinks of his friend he outweighs all of the negatives in his life and makes him forget for a moment all of the sorrows of his life.
AUDIENCE: The speaker seems to be thinking to himself and accounting his lifes details.
PURPOSE: The purpose of this poem is to show that through all of the negative aspects of life there is always something or someone that comes good out of the mix and that there is always something positive.
SUBJECT: The subject of this poem is the past life of the speaker and the sorrows in his life of things that he never attained and relationships that he never made.
TONE: The tone of the poem is serious and sad in the way that the speaker describes his life. It changes though in the rhyming couplet when the tone changes to almost uplifting when he mentions his friend and the joy that his friend brings making him forget about the other sorrows that he was talking about.
THEME: The theme of this poem seems to be the sorrows that this man has because of the things that he missed out on in the past and the things that he is looking back at now wishing that he had done differently.
Kacie
Sonnet 130
My mistrees' eyes are not like the ocean,
looking into them they are not so swell.
Making me want to feed her a potion,
so she will fall to the bottom of my wishing well.
She is very pale.
Her skin is rough as can be.
Her body is the size of a whale.
She is as tough as Muhamad Ali.
When she cries,
i want to hide.
She always sighs,
her large mouth opening wide.
Mirror mirror on the wall, she may not be the finest of them all,
though i could not bear to watch her fall.
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 damasked, 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.
SPEAKER: The speaker in this poem is a man describing his lover, honestly as he sees her. He is confident in their love for one another and does not feel the need to skip describing her flaws.
OCCASION: The occasion of this poem is a man being honest with himself and describing his lover truthfully, showing her flaws.
AUDIENCE: He is speaking to anyone who questions his ability to love someone with flaws. He points out to the audience that he is comfortable with his love, and has no problem pointing out her flaws because he loves her either way and doesnt need to hide and pretend she doesnt have flaws.
PURPOSE: The purpose of this poem is to explain that everyone is not perfect and that people can still love others with flaws. It is to show that everyone is worthy of love. After giving his sarcastic description of his lovers flaws he ends the poem, And yet by heaven, I think my love as rare, As any she belied with false compare, showing that he lovers her despite of everything else.
SUBJECT: The subject of this poem is the speakers lover and her flaws.
TONE: The tone of this poem is honest and sarcastic. He describes his lover honestly but is sarcastic in his descriptions of her flaws.
THEME: The theme of this poem is love and the aspects that go into loving someone. It shows that there are other things that are relevant other that beauty.
Kacie O.
Sonnet 138
When my love swears that she is made of truth,
I do believe her though I know she lies,
That she might think me some untutored youth,
Unlearned in the world's false subtleties.
Thus vainly thinking that she thinks me young,
Although she knows my days are past the best,
Simply I credit her false-speaking tongue:
On both sides thus is simple truth suppressed:
But wherefore says she not she is unjust?
And wherefore say not I that I am old?
O! love's best habit is in seeming trust,
And age in love, loves not to have years told:
Therefore I lie with her, and she with me,
And in our faults by lies we flattered be
SPEAKER: The speaker of this poem is a man who is working through his relationship and trying to understand it. In the opening line of the poem, having his lover swear she is true shows that he knows there are problems.
OCCASION: The occasion of this poem seems to be that the speaker and his lover had just been talking about there relationship and its flaws. His lover "swears that she is made of truth" shows that they have been talking about there relationship. The speaker may have found a reason to doubt his lover and what she had told him.
AUDIENCE: This poem may be intended for other people in relationships. It may be a warning to not do the same things that they have done in the relationship, by deceiving each other and themselves.
PURPOSE: The poems purpose is to show how love can take over and bias your decisions. The poem shows how even though he knows that his lover is lying to him, he lies to her and to himself to stay with her. The speaker says that he is older and that he pretends to be naive and pretends not to know that she is lying. The fact is that if he is older and wiser he should know better than to stay with a woman show lies to him. The poem also shows that being loved even if it is false is better for some people than being alone.
SUBJECT: The subject of this poem is love and deception in love. The subject is also how love and being with someone is important to him, even if the love is not completely true.
TONE: The tone of this poem is serious and self-revealing of the speaker.
THEME: Lying and deception seem to be the main themes of this poem. The lying people do to each other and also the lying that people do to themselves. This poem also focuses on the reasons for lying and how people respond to it. The speaker and his lover both show different examples of these.
Sonnet Response to 130
The pools of love she has ain’t very bright
To say they are as popping or better-
As rainbows; such would act now as a fright
For her locks look as they’re made of red setter.
I once saw violets; through the life and time
Though her subtle glow does’nt act alike.
The horrid perfume she emits is crime
For well she forced on a thorough strike.
But her being is fine: though over life
The time I spend with those of non human-
Is far, my friend, such the most contrite.
I know I never saw a queen within
And yet, I know my love to be of rare
For she has fought against any compare.
Shall I not compare thee to a summer’s day?
You are more ghostly and cold than any summer day:
Your wild hair disturbs the kids at school,
Winter is long but I enjoy its company
The cold eyes set you apart from everyone else
Your stare is numb, but your words are warm
Your like a cold snowstorm disturbing the peace
But yet beautiful when it all settles.
My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun;
Barbie dolls have more color in their face than you
If bears are beats, you must be a monster
If hair be wires, where are the wires on your heard?
Your favorite perfume is brussel sprouts
And you use fish flavored toothpaste
I rather listen to fingernails on a chalk board
Then listen to your voice sing.
But somehow your beastly image brings me closer:
To you
He says I’m young,
But I feel like I am about to die
He says I make him week in the knees,
But I think its arthritis.
We try to pretend like we are kids again,
But we can not run or stand to long.
We keep our age our secret,
Because that’s what keeps us young.
Therefore I lie with him, and he with me.
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