How Does Betjeman Use Satire In Shakespeare
John Betjeman and William Shakespeare: A Study of Satire and Metaphor
Generally there are several elements of poetry, for example, metaphor, persona, satire, and also language and form. However, in this essay, I’m going to focus more on the satirical and metaphorical aspect although, in a sense, the element of satire and persona share quiet a similar essence in which both showed the poet’s detachment with the persona in his poem. According to Encyclopaedia Britannica (2014), satire is defined as an artistic form, chiefly literary and dramatic, in which human or individual vices, follies, abuses, or shortcomings are held up to censure by means of ridicule, derision, burlesque, irony, parody, caricature, or other methods, sometimes with an intent to inspire social reform. Whereas in general, satire makes a subject look ridiculous in order …show more content…
The line –“Shall I compare thee to a summer 's day?”-- itself is actually a metaphorical way of complimenting his sweetheart by comparing her to the summer day which is known to represent the youth. Then, the poet goes on to commends the darling, saying she is more exquisite than the most pleasant summer day, yet soon the cool winds of the autumn day will make the flowers fall. He also goes on explaining that summer doesn 't keep going long and so does one 's youth.
Next, he said that sometimes the summer days can be to hot and sometime it will get cloudy, then he naturally continues by saying that everything delightful in the end blurs by chance or by nature 's inexorable changes. Returning to the sweetheart, however, he contends that her beauty won 't go away, nor will her magnificence blur away by this line:
“Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines, And often is his gold complexion dimm’d;
And every fair from fair sometime
Generally there are several elements of poetry, for example, metaphor, persona, satire, and also language and form. However, in this essay, I’m going to focus more on the satirical and metaphorical aspect although, in a sense, the element of satire and persona share quiet a similar essence in which both showed the poet’s detachment with the persona in his poem. According to Encyclopaedia Britannica (2014), satire is defined as an artistic form, chiefly literary and dramatic, in which human or individual vices, follies, abuses, or shortcomings are held up to censure by means of ridicule, derision, burlesque, irony, parody, caricature, or other methods, sometimes with an intent to inspire social reform. Whereas in general, satire makes a subject look ridiculous in order …show more content…
The line –“Shall I compare thee to a summer 's day?”-- itself is actually a metaphorical way of complimenting his sweetheart by comparing her to the summer day which is known to represent the youth. Then, the poet goes on to commends the darling, saying she is more exquisite than the most pleasant summer day, yet soon the cool winds of the autumn day will make the flowers fall. He also goes on explaining that summer doesn 't keep going long and so does one 's youth.
Next, he said that sometimes the summer days can be to hot and sometime it will get cloudy, then he naturally continues by saying that everything delightful in the end blurs by chance or by nature 's inexorable changes. Returning to the sweetheart, however, he contends that her beauty won 't go away, nor will her magnificence blur away by this line:
“Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines, And often is his gold complexion dimm’d;
And every fair from fair sometime