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"Shall I Compare Thee To A Summer's Day?" written by William Shakespeare. The other also has the same title, "Shall I Compare Thee To A Summer's Day?" written by Howard Moss.

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"Shall I Compare Thee To A Summer's Day?" written by William Shakespeare. The other also has the same title, "Shall I Compare Thee To A Summer's Day?" written by Howard Moss.
The Analyze of Two Poems

- The Final Draft -

The Introduction

In this essay, I would like to analyze two poems that have the same titles. One is "Shall I Compare Thee To A Summer 's Day?" written by William Shakespeare. The other also has the same title, "Shall I Compare Thee To A Summer 's Day?" written by Howard Moss. In fact, the two poems have not only the same titles but also similar stories. In other words, Moss 's poem is a parody of Shakespeare 's poem. By the way, how are they different and also similar?

The First Impression of Two Poems

When I first read both Shakespeare 's poem and Moss 's poem, I could not understand Shakespeare 's thought. What I feel about his poem is that it seems to be very unusual while Moss 's poem looks very natural. I mean that it is hard to read rather than hard to understand because there are some old English words. For example, Shakespeare states,

Shall I compare thee to a summer 's day? -1st line

Thou art more lovely and more temperate -2nd line

And summer 's lease hath all too short a date -4th line

He used 'thee ' and 'thou ' instead of 'you ' and 'your '. He did not use 'have ' but used 'hath '. I feel old English styles of the 16th century through his poem.

A Figure of speech

One of the other reasons that make this poem unusual is that it includes many figures of speech. A figure of speech is an expression or use of language to achieve a particular effect. Figures of speech also include metaphors and similes. There are some metaphors in Shakespeare 's poem while Moss 's poem is made up of very typical sentences. I think that 'summer 's day ' in Shakespeare 's poem includes lots of meaning. He mentions the day like the paragraph 1. Moss also states,

Who says you 're like one of the dog days? -1

You 're nicer. And better. -2

And a summer sub-let doesn 't last forever. -4

As you know, both the summer 's day and the dog days could mean just hot weather in summer. However, the 'summer 's day ' includes



Cited: Kennedy and Dana Gioia. 7th ed. New York: Longman, 1999. 765-766 Moss, Howard Kennedy and Dana Gioia. 7th ed. New York: Longman, 1999. 766 Definition Encarta World English Dictionary Microsoft Corporation, 1999 Microsoft Corporation, 1999

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