Renaissance & Reformation:

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

The XVIth century was an extremely tumultous period for Englad, mostly because it was
marked by wars and intrigues. However, it was also captured the transition towards a flourishing
cultural period in which poetry, drama and theater plays started to gain a lot more attention.
This period was the period marked by the Renaissance, which came almost 150 years later in
England because of the on-going wars, but also by the Reformation, which was a movement
which reformed the Catholic Church and gave Protestant groups autonomy. It all started when
Henry VIII separated from his wife and named himself the head of the church, which became
the Anglican Church. Shakespeare lived most of his life during the Elizabethan era which is
considered to be the Golden Age of England. It was a period of prosperity, dominance and
progress, not only politically, but also culturally. One of the most important achievements of
Queen Elizabeth I was the defeat of the Spanish Armada and the establishment of England as
the dominant naval power, which opened the way towards establishing colonies. Queen
Elizabeth’s reign was one that favoured literature and cultural development. Also, this was the
period in which the ideas of the Renaissance started spreading in England, almost two centuries
later than in Italy, but with the promise of having a great impact. The Renaissance was a period
of re-birth and it emphasized on education, which also increased the literacy levels. Elizabeth I
greatly supported theater as a cultural expression, therefore 1567 marked the opening of the
Read Lion. Then, 1599 marked the opening of Globe Theater. The most important one was The
Theater which was direcly supported by Queen Elizabeth. Moreover, Shakespeare wrote a
series of history plays which depict in some way or another the War of Roses: Richard II, Henry
IV, Henry V, Henry VI, Richard III.

1. The Sonnets

A sonnet is a poetic form which consists of 14 lines that can be organised in different ways, but
the standard Shakespearian form, which was made famous by him, but not created by him,
consists of three four line stanzas and a final rhyme couplet. (a,b,a,b/c,d,c,d/e,f,e,f/g,g). The
meter used by Shakespear is an iambic one, which means that every line has ten syllables,
consisting of five iambs (emphasis on the last syllable of the word). Shakespeare wrote sonnets
some time between 1590 and early 1600. They were collected and published in 1609 by Thomas
Torpe. Also, they portray Shakespeare’s belief that poetry is more important than anything, that
it is eternal and it transcends life. This belief was a typical Elizabethan trope because in that
period life was seen as temporary and poetry was seen as lasting forever.

There are 154 sonnets in total, but there is a high chance he wrote more, yet we might never
know.

His sonnets fall into three distinct groups:

 1 – 126: sonnets about a certain ”fair youth” which is considered to be a young boy who
is the love interest throughout all these poems. This is made obvious by pronouns which
he used and which clearly indicate that these sonnets are dedicated to a man, not to a
woman.
 126 – 152: sonnets about a certain ”dark lady”. (there is also a sonnet (sonnet 144) in
which the love for the young boy who is pure intertwines with the desire for the dark
lady which is deemed as a treacherous thing by Shakespeare; the result is a contrast, an
anthitesis between good and evil, white and black, pure and impure); these sonnets are
marked by torment and shame at being attracted by ths dark lady.
 152 – 154: these two sonnets tell the story of Cupid.

1. SONNET 18: ”Shall I compare thee to a summer day”

SONNET 18

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 dimm'd;

And every fair from fair sometime declines,

By chance, or nature's changing course, untrimm'd;

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,

So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,

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

The entire poem is a metaphor dedicated to the young man that represents the muse for 126 of
Shakespeare’s poems. Some themes that appear here are love, time, immortality. Shakespeare
eternalizes the beloved because he lives on longer than a summer day: ”So long as man can
breathe or eyes can see.” Yet, in the end it becomes a metaphor for poetry, not for the beloved.

”Shakespeare’s Sonnets do more than revise the conventions and then reject the courtliness or
the mythological paraphernalia of the sonnet sequences of the 1590s. They throb with a new
metrical energy, they explore a new emotional range, they wrestle with the implications of a
new language, and they enact new dramas within their exact, fourteen-line structures. Above
all, they suggest that the faults which make and mar human buoyancy lie not in the stars, nor in
a particular unattainable star, but in ourselves.” (Short Oxford History of English Literature)

2. SONNET 116 – ”Let me not to the marriage of true minds”

Let me not to the marriage of true minds

Admit impediments. Love is not love

Which alters when it alteration finds,

Or bends with the remover to remove.

O no! it is an ever-fixed mark

That looks on tempests and is never shaken;

It is the star to every wand'ring bark,

Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.

Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks

Within his bending sickle's compass come;

Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,

But bears it out even to the edge of doom.

If this be error and upon me prov'd,

I never writ, nor no man ever lov'd.

3. SONNET 130 – My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun

My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun;

Coral is far more red than her lips' red;

If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;

If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.

I have seen roses damasked, red and white,

But no such roses see I in her cheeks;

And in some perfumes is there more delight

Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.

I love to hear her speak, yet well I know

That music hath a far more pleasing sound;

I grant I never saw a goddess go;

My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground.

And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare

As any she belied with false compare.

This sonnet looks like a parody of the poems that idealize the loved one. Shakespeare shows
how poets exaggerate by portraying a version of the loved one which is humanized. By showing
all of her flaws a greater act of love is made because idealized love tends to distance itself from
the real person. This sonnet is characterized by a descriptive aggression, mostly because
Shakespare shocks with the portrayal of his beloved through verses like her breasts are dun,
black wires grow from her head, the breath that from my mistress reeks. This sonnet brings in
authenticity and a dose of realism which slows down the idealism that marked that period and
which was so common in works of poets like Dante or Petrarch, in Italy, where the Renaissance
started.

2. Romeo and Juliet