PRESENTATION ON SONNET 18

Creating ByNaimur Rahman

(16116026)Rifat Al Noman (16116019)Mahzabin Bipasha (15116018)

Sofed Mahmud (15216003)

Poets During Shakespeare’s time

  

  

Content1.Backgrouond of The Author2.Background of The Work3.Analysis of The Poem4.Speaker5.Addresse6.Tone7.Symbolism8.Figure of Speech9.Stracture10.Theme11.Title Implication

Background of the Author

Within the class system of Elizabethan England, William Shakespeare did not seem destined for greatness. He was not born into a family of nobility or significant wealth. He did not continue his formal education at university, nor did he come under the mentorship of a senior artist, nor did he marry into wealth or prestige. His talent as an actor seems to have been modest, since he is not known for starring roles. His success as a playwright depended in part upon royal patronage. Yet in spite of these limitations, Shakespeare is now the most performed and read playwright in the world.

Background of the Author

Born to John Shakespeare, a glove maker and tradesman, and Mary Arden, the daughter of an affluent farmer, William Shakespeare was baptized on April 26, 1564, in Stratford-upon-Avon. At that time, infants were baptized three days after their birth, thus scholars believe that Shakespeare was born on April 23, the same day on which he died at age 52. As the third of eight children, young William grew up in this small town 100 miles northwest of London, far from the cultural and courtly center of England. He was a poet of English Renaissance and Elizabethan era.

His Masterpieces

Shall I compare TheeAs You Like ItHelmetKing LearAntony and CleopatraThe TempestShakespeare wrote 154 Sonnets, 38 Plays and 2

narrative Poems. Ben Jonson wrote of Shakespeare, “He was not of an age, but for all time.”

Background of the AuthorMany of his plays were published in editions of

varying quality and accuracy during his lifetime. In 1623, two of his former theatrical colleagues published the First Folio, a collected edition of his dramatic works that included all but two of the plays now recognized as Shakespeare's. 

Shakespeare was a respected poet and playwright in his own day, but his reputation did not rise to its present heights until the 19th century.

The Romantics, in particular, acclaimed Shakespeare's genius, and the Victorians worshipped Shakespeare with a reverence that George Bernard Shaw called "bardolatry".

Background of the Author In the 20th century, his

work was repeatedly adopted and rediscovered by new movements in scholarship and performance. His plays remain highly popular today and are constantly studied, performed and reinterpreted in diverse cultural and political contexts throughout the world.

Background of the WorkShakespeare’s sonnets were composed

between 1593 and 1601, though not published until 1609. That edition, The Sonnets of Shakespeare, consists of 154 sonnets, all written in the form of three quatrains and a couplet that is now recognized as Shakespearean. The sonnets fall into two groups: sonnets 1-126, addressed to a beloved friend, a handsome and noble young man, presumably the author’s patron, and sonnets 127-152, to a malignant but fascinating “Dark Lady," who the poet loves in spite of himself. Nearly all of Shakespeare’s sonnets examine the inevitable decay of time, and the immortalization of beauty and love in poetry.

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.

SON

NET 18

OF THE POEM

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?

This question is flattering in itself as a summer’s day is often associated

with beauty.

Thou art more lovely and more temperate:

Shakespeare, however, explains that his love’s beauty exceeds that of the

summer and does not have its tendency towards unpleasant

extremes:

Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,And summer's lease hath all too short a date:

It should be noted that at the time the sonnet was written, England had not yet adopted the Gregorian calendar and May was considered a summer month. In the above quote, Shakespeare describes the fragility and short duration of summer’s

beauty. The use of the word ‘lease’ reminds us of the fact that everything

beautiful remains so for a limited time only and after a while its beauty will be forcibly

taken away. 

Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,And often is his gold complexion dimmed,

Shakespeare states that the sun, which he personifies and refers to as ‘the eye of

heaven’, can be too hot or blocked from view by the clouds unlike his ‘more

temperate’ love. 

And every fair from fair sometime declines,By chance, or nature's changing course untrimmed:

The repetition of the word ‘fair’ highlights the fact that this fate is inescapable for

everything that possesses beauty.

“But thy eternal summer shall not fade,Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st,Nor shall death brag thou wander’st in his shadeWhen in eternal lines to time thou grow’st”

Suddenly (though it was foreshadowed a bit in line 8), the tone and direction of the poem

changes dramatically. Moving on from bashing summer and the limitations inherent in nature, the speaker pronounces that the beloved he’s speaking to isn’t subject to all

of these rules he’s laid out.

“But thy eternal summer shall not fade,Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st,Nor shall death brag thou wander’st in his shadeWhen in eternal lines to time thou grow’st”

Shakespeare, however, states that his love will not lose their beauty to death or time but will be preserved through his poetry:

So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

(As long as there are humans alive on this planet Your life and beauty will live

on through this sonnet)Shakespeare’s self-assured claim makes it possible to argue that the purpose of

the poem was not actually to pay a beloved person a compliment but rather

to praise oneself for poetic skill.

Speaker:

The Author

Addressee:

The young man

Tone:

Endearing, deep devotion for a

lover

Symbolism:“The darling buds of May” – the beautiful, much loved buds of the early summer

“The eye of heaven” – Sun

Figure of SpeechMetaphor:

“Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?”

Figure of SpeechMetaphor:"Thou art more lovely and more

temperate”

Figure of SpeechPersonification:

“Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May”

“Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines“

Figure of SpeechPersonification:

“Nor shall death brag thou wander’st in his shade”

Figure of SpeechAnaphora:

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

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

STRUCTUREIambic pentameter

the most common metrical pattern in poetry written in English, alternates weak unstressed and strong stressed syllables to make a ten-syllable line (weak strong/weak strong/weak strong/weak strong/weak strong).

THEMES Love Literature and Writing Time Man and the Natural World

TITLE IMPLICATIONShakespeare's sonnets are a collection of

154 sonnets, dealing with themes such as the passage of time, love, beauty and mortality, first published in a 1609 quarto entitled SHAKE-SPEARES SONNETS.

Never before imprinted. (although sonnets 138 and144 had previously been published in the 1599 miscellany The Passionate Pilgrim).

The quarto ends with "A Lover's Complaint", a narrative poem of 47 seven-line stanzas written in rhyme royal.