Sonnet 16 Analysis

Project in English08

World Literature

SONNET 16

by: William Shakespeare

Submitted to:

Mrs. Mila L. Richwine

Submitted by:

Cawis, Richard Lee T.

De Vera, Mae Anne N.

Duclayan, Lyka R.

Egar Flory May F.

Galvez, Robert O.

Ibo, John Paul V.

Panes, Gerald O.

SONNET 16

[pic]UT wherefore do not you a mightier way 


Make war upon this bloody tyrant, Time? 


And fortify yourself in your decay 


With means more blessèd than my barren rime? 


Now stand you on the top of happy hours, 


And many maiden gardens, yet unset, 


With virtuous wish would bear your living flowers, 


Much liker than your painted counterfeit: 


So should the lines of life that life repair 


Which this time's pencil or my pupil pen, 


Neither in inward worth nor outward fair 


Can make you live yourself in eyes of men.


To give away yourself keeps yourself still, 


And you must live, drawn by your own sweet skill

Analysis of Shakespeare's Sonnet 18

Sonnet 18 is part of a large group of sonnets that Shakespeare wrote addressing a man of great beauty. Shakespeare, in sonnet 18, uses descriptions of nature, and the power and images that they imply, and directly compares them to the power the young man possesses in his youth, vigor, and promise. Shakespeare then finds that the beauty and power of nature do not compare to the beauty and power of the young man. He uses his poem as a way to provide the youth with an eternal existence and subsequently makes it evident that Shakespeare sees the young man as more than a human, he sees him as a god.

In the first quatrain Shakespeare begins his comparison between the young man and nature by comparing the young man to a summer’s day. The image suggests illumination, brilliance, light, life, and all things associated with the sun as the source of all these things. Shakespeare feels the same way about the young man; he is in his prime, in his glory, full of life and beautiful.... [continues]

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