shakespeare s sonnet 138 the sonnet essay
Excerpt from Essay:
The rhyme plan of this sonnet follows Shakespeare’s usual structure, wherein the quatrains all have an 3rd party alternating rhyme (ABAB CDCD EFEF), plus the final two lines type an heroic couplet (GG). This increases the feeling of acquiring discrete methods of an argument, and enhances the divisions in the versification. There is also a noticeable frequency of “l’s and “s’s in the composition, particularly in the first and third poème. these appears make up the essentials of the word “lies, ” which is itself used like a rhyme and is repeated in the poem, and which forms one of the major designs of the sonnet. In this way, the alliteration subconsciously reinforces this is and truly feel of the poem. There are also cases of repeated terms, such as “love” in the lines “O love’s best behavior is in appearing trust, / and era in love, loves not to have… inch (lines 11-2). Though also this is important to his rhetoric, they have the music effect of recurring obsession.
Shakespeare’s true poetic genius lay in the fact that he can achieve such musicality and creating amazingly complex rhetorical arguments and pictures. There is not an example of metaphor or additional easily determined literary trope in the sonnet, but the overall argument William shakespeare lays out in the sonnet – in addition to the specific structure of a few of these arguments – demonstrates his extreme rhetorical skill. As Margreta de Grazia records, “for equally words and sentences, 1600 was a time of innovation and experimentation, inches and the intricacy of Shakespeare’s poetic sentences definitely demonstrates this (de Grazia 50). The poem has many types of this – nearly every series – however the final couplet is the most intellectually playful and enjoyable: “Therefore I lie with her, and the lady with me, / and in our faults by lies all of us flattered be” (lines 13-4). Not only perhaps there is the play on the word “lie, ” which may be especially ribald in the second line, but the construction of the thought makes the payoff with the word “flattered” much better; you doesn’t uncover the ultimate realization of the disagreement until the previous possible second. This last twsit casts humor on the entire poem.
Trough his versification, prosody, and unsupported claims, Shakespeare crafted musically and intellectually pleasing sonnets. The regularity with the rhythm combines with the concentration achieved through word reps and unnecessary repetition to give the composition an almost sing-songy feeling, that makes the intellectual depth from the poem almost ironic in how it is recognized. All in all, can make for a very enjoyable go through, and helped to cement Shakespeare’s photo as a fictional genius.
Works Cited
Sobre Grazia, Margreta. The Cambridge Companion to Shakespeare. New York: Cambridge College or university Press 2001.
Evans, G. Blakemore and M.