Shakespeare Sonnet 2 Tone
Joseph Kurbanov
Mrs. Drake
Honors English: Block - H
11 January 2010
Analysis for Shakespeare's Sonnets Two and Three
Sonnet 2... In Shakespeare’s Sonnet II, the sonnet progresses from a gentle warning, to a more stern threat by the end of the poem. In the first stanza, Shakespeare says that in forty years when the man is all wrinkled, the beauty of his youth will mean nothing. But if he has a child, then the legacy of his beauty will live on forever. In the second stanza, Shakespeare says that the man will hate himself if he does not have children, and when he gets old and decrepit he cannot see his beauty passed on to anyone. He will look back on his life, and realize how greedy and selfish he was by not having children. In the third …show more content…
Shakespeare uses words such as “disdains,” “repair,” and “posterity” to break up the flow of the sonnet. The sonnet does not flow incredibly easily, like most of Shakespeare’s sonnets, and does not have a really lyrical sense to it. It is more of a speech than a song. The tonal change occurs at line 12, right at the rhyming couplet. The whole sonnet up until that point is basically Shakespeare telling W.H. that all his earthly beauty will be for nothing if he does not have children. At the couplet, Shakespeare offers W.H. a way out of dying along with his image: reproduce. The last line of the sonnet is very threatening. It promises W.H. that if he does not have children then all his beauty will be meaningless because it will die with him. The poem gradually gets more serious as it progresses, starting off with a gentle nudge to get W.H. to look in the mirror and convince himself that having children is the best way to preserve his beauty, and finally in the last line Shakespeare warns W.H. that he will die with his image if he does not. The diction in this sonnet chops it up to make it more speech like than songlike. Shakespeare uses alliteration in this poem with words such as “thou though” and “thine” in line 11, and words like, “face” and “form” in line 2, along with “fresh,” in line 3. Shakespeare also uses antithesis when he puts words like “fond” and “tomb” right near each other in line 7, or the words, “renewest” and …show more content…
The metaphor continues throughout the sonnet, and is very important to the progression of the sonnet. Shakespeare also compares W.H. and his potential wife to farm tools, specifically plows. He calls the wife’s womb, “unear’d,” or “unploughed,” which means that W.H. or any other man has yet to impregnate her. Shakespeare also says that it is unjust to deny her this right. Shakespeare compares W.H. to the plow, specifically to prove that there is a woman in the world who is destined to be the mother of W.H.’s children. W.H. needs to have children to continue his beauty, and the woman who’s “field” is ready to be “planted” by W.H. is out waiting for
Mrs. Drake
Honors English: Block - H
11 January 2010
Analysis for Shakespeare's Sonnets Two and Three
Sonnet 2... In Shakespeare’s Sonnet II, the sonnet progresses from a gentle warning, to a more stern threat by the end of the poem. In the first stanza, Shakespeare says that in forty years when the man is all wrinkled, the beauty of his youth will mean nothing. But if he has a child, then the legacy of his beauty will live on forever. In the second stanza, Shakespeare says that the man will hate himself if he does not have children, and when he gets old and decrepit he cannot see his beauty passed on to anyone. He will look back on his life, and realize how greedy and selfish he was by not having children. In the third …show more content…
Shakespeare uses words such as “disdains,” “repair,” and “posterity” to break up the flow of the sonnet. The sonnet does not flow incredibly easily, like most of Shakespeare’s sonnets, and does not have a really lyrical sense to it. It is more of a speech than a song. The tonal change occurs at line 12, right at the rhyming couplet. The whole sonnet up until that point is basically Shakespeare telling W.H. that all his earthly beauty will be for nothing if he does not have children. At the couplet, Shakespeare offers W.H. a way out of dying along with his image: reproduce. The last line of the sonnet is very threatening. It promises W.H. that if he does not have children then all his beauty will be meaningless because it will die with him. The poem gradually gets more serious as it progresses, starting off with a gentle nudge to get W.H. to look in the mirror and convince himself that having children is the best way to preserve his beauty, and finally in the last line Shakespeare warns W.H. that he will die with his image if he does not. The diction in this sonnet chops it up to make it more speech like than songlike. Shakespeare uses alliteration in this poem with words such as “thou though” and “thine” in line 11, and words like, “face” and “form” in line 2, along with “fresh,” in line 3. Shakespeare also uses antithesis when he puts words like “fond” and “tomb” right near each other in line 7, or the words, “renewest” and …show more content…
The metaphor continues throughout the sonnet, and is very important to the progression of the sonnet. Shakespeare also compares W.H. and his potential wife to farm tools, specifically plows. He calls the wife’s womb, “unear’d,” or “unploughed,” which means that W.H. or any other man has yet to impregnate her. Shakespeare also says that it is unjust to deny her this right. Shakespeare compares W.H. to the plow, specifically to prove that there is a woman in the world who is destined to be the mother of W.H.’s children. W.H. needs to have children to continue his beauty, and the woman who’s “field” is ready to be “planted” by W.H. is out waiting for