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Shakespeare Sonnets
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Sonnets

 

The Sonnets is a collection of poems in sonnet form written by William Shakespeare that deal with such themes as love, beauty, politics, and mortality. They were probably written over a period of several years. The sonnets are constructed from three four-line stanzas (called quatrains) and a final couplet сomposed in iambic pentameter with the rhyme scheme abab cdcd efef gg (this form is now known as the Shakespearean sonnet).

 

Characters of the Sonnets:

 

Fair Youth – (1-126), presumably Earl Southampton,Shakespeare’s patron

Rival Poet – (76-96) ,presumably Christopher Marlowe, a poet and playwright

Dark Lady – (127-152), presumably Lady Mary Fitton, a married woman

 

Sonnets Memo: First published in 1609

Quantity : 154 Sonnets

Themes:love,beauty,politics,mortality

Three four-line stanzas+couplet(two lines)

Rhyme scheme: abab cdcd efef gg

Characters:Fair Youth, Rival Poet,Dark Lady ,

Shakespeare :the Bard,the Swan of Avon,Great Unknown

 

 


Sonnet N 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 owest;

Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st in his shade,

When in eternal lines to time thou growest:

So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,

So long lives this and this gives life to thee.

 

Sonnet N 130

 

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 damask'd, 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.


 

 

Sonnet  N 66

 

Tired with all this, for restful death I cry,-
As, to behold Desert a beggar born,
And needy Nothing trimm'd in jolity,
And purest Faith unhappily forsworn,
And guilded Honour shamefully misplaced,
And maiden Virtue rudely strumpeted,
And right Perfection wrongfully disgraced,
And Strength by limping Sway disabled,
And Art made tongue-tied by Authority,
And Folly, doctor-like, controlling Skill,
And simple Truth miscall'd Simplicity,
And Captive Good attending captain Ill:

Tired with all this, from these would I be gone.
Save that, to die, I leave my love alone.

 

Category: Literature | Added by: Ann
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