2-Elizabethan Worldview

-What is Elizabethan literature?

-What is a Shakespearean sonnet?

-Text analysis: “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?”

-The literary devices in “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?”

Elizabethan Literature:

-It refers to the period of the reign of queen Elizabeth I (1558-1603). This period was
characterized by powerful intellectual thinking. An age of adventure and rediscovery.

-It was considered as the Golden age of English literature. English writers were influenced by
the Italian Renaissance. Also, this period saw the introduction of new genre in English theatre,
the tragic comedy.

-Many new styles of writing were introduced. This was the period in which the Sonnet was
popularized after its introduction to the Elizabethan literature.

-It was also considered as an era of the Sonnets or the Shakespearean Sonnets.( Shakespeare,
Wyatt and Thomas companion).

-William Shakespeare brought attention to the beauty and artfulness of the Petrarch Sonnet. He
made significant changes to this Italian model and introduced his own style(Shakespearean
Sonnets)

-While Medieval drama had a strong religious flavor, Elizabethan Drama was to a great degree
secular( it gave more importance to human being rather than to religious or spiritual matters. It
was based on the rediscovery of the classical models(Humanism and classicism).

-An important genre of Elizabethan literature was the revenge tragedy, a form of drama
influenced by the roman dramatist and tragedian Seneca.

-All roles in Elizabethan drama, including female roles, were performed by men.

Poetry was the chief form of literature along with drama:

-The Elizabethan age is also known as “the age of Shakespeare”, Edmund Spenser, Philip
Sydney and Christopher Marlowe.

-The Sonnet form was one of the most dominant genre. It is originated in Italy in 13 century
Petrarchan Sonnet by the Italian poet Petrarch. The Petrarchen Sonnet is a combination of an
Octave (eight lines that propose a problem or question) and sestet(six lines that lead to a solution
or conclusion), line 9 marks a turn in the mood of the poem and it is called a volta. Yet, The
Shakespearean sonnet or the English Sonnet is a combination of three quatrains and a couplet.
Each quatrain contains four lines. In the first quatrain, there is a proposition of a problem or
question. The second and third quatrains give a solution or answer to question or problem) and
the couplet leads to a final solution or conclusion)

-The Rhyme scheme of the Shakespearean Sonnet (1st quatrain ABAB) (2nd quatrain CDCD) (3rd
quatrain EFEF) (couplet GG). Line 9 may mark the turn in the mood of the poem using
transitional linking word.

The Analysis of Sonnet 18 By William Shakespeare:

General ideas about the poem:

1. Sonnet 18, “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?” – arguably the most well-loved
poem in the English language. William Shakespeare’s “Shall I Compare Thee to a
Summer’s Day” (“Sonnet 18”) deals with the poet’s view of youth and beauty as it
applies to his loved one.
2. This sonnet uses conventional images of natural beauty to demonstrate that the beauty
and youth of the beloved surpasses even the most sublime of these, and further, that only
poetry( art) is capable of capturing and sustaining the addressee’s beauty and youth. In
other words, he asserts that the beloved’s youth and beauty will endure forever in these
lines of verse.

SONNET 18 PARAPHRASE
Shall I compare thee to a summer's day? Shall I compare you to a summer's day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate: You are more lovely and more constant:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May, Rough winds shake the beloved buds of May
And summer's lease hath all too short a date: And summer is far too short:
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines, At times the sun is too hot,
And often is his gold complexion dimm'd; Or often goes behind the clouds;
And every fair from fair sometime declines, And everything beautiful sometime will lose its
beauty,
By chance, or nature's changing course, By misfortune or by nature's planned out course.
untrimm'd;
But thy eternal summer shall not fade But your youth shall not fade,
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st; Nor will you lose the beauty that you possess;
Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st in his Nor will death claim you for his own,
shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou grow'st; Because in my eternal verse you will live
forever.
So long as men can breathe or eyes can see, So long as there are people on this earth,
So long lives this and this gives life to thee. So long will this poem live on, making you
immortal.

Analysis of “Sonnet 18” by William Shakespeare:

1. The speaker, Shakespeare, starts the first quatrain with a question, asking if he should
compare the woman he admires to a summer’s day.
2. In the second quatrain, he goes on to describe the negative aspects of the summer, telling
us how the season is “too hot” and how it lasts only for a season.
3. By the third quatrain, the poet resolves his opening question in the first line and decides
that his lover’s beauty is an “eternal summer [that] shall not fade.”
4. Finally, the speaker concludes his thoughts in the couplet when he writes how “this”—the
sonnet—will forever give life to the Shakespeare’s beloved ‘s youth and beauty.
Poetic devices used in this poem:
Several poetic devices enhance the poet’s meaning. In “Sonnet 18,” Shakespeare uses form and
figurative language to express how his unnamed lover possesses an eternal beauty that far
surpasses a summer’s day.

Form:

Did You Know? ... A sonnet is in verse form and has fourteen lines of iambic pentameter.
Shakespeare's sonnets follow the pattern "abab cdcd efef gg", and Petrarch's sonnets follow the
pattern "abba abba cdecde." All the lines in iambic pentameter have five feet, consisting of an
unstressed syllable followed by a stressed one.
Iambic Pentameter :pentameter is a line of poetry that is made up of five metrical feet, or five
sets of unstressed and stressed syllables.

A foot of poetry is referred to as an iamb if it has one unstressed syllable followed by a stressed
syllable. The word “describe” is an iamb because we do not stress the “de” in the word, but we
emphasize the “scribe” following it. Therefore, iambic means unstressed/stressed.
(Extra information):Shakespeare is known for his use of iambic pentameter. He uses it in his
plays and his poetry. Often, iambic pentameter can be used to give indications of class
differences in renaissance plays and works. In Shakespeare’s work, upper class characters speak
in iambic pentameter and are juxtaposed by the lower class language. Iambic pentameter was
heavily used during the Renaissance in England. Poets like John Donne used iambic pentameter
in his poetry. Chaucer, during earlier and medieval periods, also used iambic pentameter in
his Canterbury Tales..

Here are examples of iambic pentameter in use:

From “Holy Sonnet XIV” by John Donne:

As yet but knock, breathe, shine and seek to mend.

That I may rise and stand o’erthrow me and bend

Every other word in these two lines of poetry are stressed. In the first line, the stress falls on
“yet,” “knock,” “shine,” “seek,” and “mend.” Donne chooses words that highlight the unstressed
and stressed construction. The stressed words have similar sounding vowels or use consonance to
highlight their stress.

From Shakespeare’s “Sonnet 12:”

“When I do count the clock that tells the time,

And see the brave day sunk in hideous night;

When I behold the violet past prime. . .”

Shakespeare, like Donne, uses iambic pentameter to open his sonnet. The words “I,”count,”
“clock,” tells,” and “time” hold stress. Shakespeare heavily uses consonance make the line flow
and to stress every other word.

Figurative language and Metaphor:

To begin, let's review this term. Figurative language consists of words or phrases with a
different interpretation other than the literal meaning. For instance, imagine there is a storm
raging outside your window and you yell to your mother, 'It's raining cats and dogs!'

The literal interpretation of that statement would be that animals are falling from the sky. Is that
true? Of course not! Instead, you have a figurative interpretation that the rain is coming
down really hard. This figure of speech emphasizes that message.

Now we can look closer at different types of figurative language used in this sonnet. Our first
one is a metaphor, which compares two things without using 'like' or 'as.' Metaphors usually
draw the comparison by stating one thing is another.

Returning to Shakespeare, let's go back to the very first line of 'Sonnet 18:'

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?

This line outlines the metaphor for the whole poem, which compares the woman, the speaker’s
beloved to a summer day.

We see another metaphor further on in the poem:

Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,

And often is his gold complexion dimm'd;

In these lines, the metaphor is comparing the sun to the eye of heaven. This figurative language
emphasizes the beauty or radiance of the sun. His underlying point lies in the fact that even the
sun (the eye of heaven) will get dim from time to time, but the beauty of his beloved will never
fade. This can be seen again later in the poem:

But thy eternal summer shall not fade

Again, this metaphor reiterates the fundamental comparison of this woman to a summer's day.

Deviation:

Another element the Bard(poet) includes to share his feelings about the beauty of his
beloved is imagery. For example, when Shakespeare describes a summer’s day in line three, his
version sharply contradicts the kind of summer we usually picture. “Rough winds do shake the
darling buds of May.” This shows that the poet sees the summer climate as a devastating blow to
flowers of the spring—“the darling buds of May”—rather than a bright and sunny day. This is
because he wants to show just how much better his lover’s beauty is compared with the summer;
Shakespeare wants to tear down all positive thoughts about the summer so readers can recognize
just how much he’s lifting up the image of the woman in his mind. In addition, when the speaker
describes the summer sun’s rays, he uses the words “gold complexion dimmed.” This shows that
the poet once again wants to downplay the significance of what readers normally think of as a
warm, comforting sun, referring to its rays instead as “dimmed.” This is because the speaker
eventually wants readers to see that the woman he’s infatuated with has looks
that will never change. As a result of describing the season’s climate and sunshine,
Shakespeare convinces readers that the summer pales greatly in comparison to his
beloved.

Personification:

Finally, the poet employs figurative language to bring his point of view about the woman’s
eternal splendor.
We see this in the second quatrain when Shakespeare personifies the sun, calling it “the
eye of heaven” with “his gold complexion.” Giving the sun a human quality degrades what we
normally consider as the powerful, ultra-violet sun that rests in outer space, untouchable and
unreachable. This helps introduce Shakespeare’s theme and his ultimate contrast in the third
quatrain, where he tells of his beloved’s lasting beauty.
We also find another example of personification in line 11 when Shakespeare writes,
“Nor shall Death brag thou wander’st in his shade.” Once more, Shakespeare equates death to a
human being to show that his loved one transcends all living creatures or acts of nature. She is
the ideal figure not only in the poet’s eyes, but in all others who will eventually read about her in
“this” poem. Therefore, the poet’s use of figurative language makes the subject of “Sonnet 18” a
superior being, a goddess whose beauty forever shines in our minds and whose power can conquer
death itself.
• Hyperbole: the use of exaggeration as a rhetorical device.

Ex: “Shall I compare the to a summer’s day?”