DDCPoetry

Original poem reprinted online here:   "Shall I compare thee to a summer's day? (Sonnet 18)" by William Shakespeare Originally read: October 27, 2013 More information about the Poet: William Shakespeare Probably one of the most famous (Elizabethan) sonnets of all time.  This poem in particular reminds me of that old English puzzle.  "Can I go to the bathroom?" "I don't know, can  you?"  Something facetious like that.  This poem isn't facetious though. The core of the poem is not only a love poem, but also a permission poem.  Where "My mistress eyes is nothing like the sun" plays with the idea of hyperbolic comparison, the play with this poem is the idea of "love."     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. The first part is a rhetorical question based on asking the other...

Original poem reprinted online here: "My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun (Sonnet 130)" by William Shakespeare Originally read: I think middle school, but I printed this out July 3, 2013 More information about the Poet: William Shakespeare  Another poem with a lot of analysis and criticisms.  This poem though, regardless of how many analysis and criticisms are written about it, is fun to look at again and again?  Why?  For me, it's the tone of the speaker -- the sheer audacity to write, basically, to state what is beautiful and what is not beautiful. The poem, written in Elizabethan Sonnet, gives a lot of leeway to the speaker.  The first twelve lines, yeah, let's define beauty and what is not beautiful.  Last two lines, volta, "And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare / As any she belied with false compare."  The speaker will love her, of course, regardless of her. "Her" being not the most "beautiful" -- she is lesser in th...

Original poem reprinted online here: "Sonnet 109: O! never say that I was false of heart" by William Shakespeare Originally read: February 14, 2013 More information about the Poet: William Shakespeare There's plenty of analysis on this poem -- well all of Shakespeare.  And usually Shakespeare sonnets deal with love, or cheating, or being in love while cheating.  Well this poem is about cheating on his rose (by any other name would smell just as sweet) and still be in love with her. Charming. So this poem is an Elizabethan sonnet, but instead of separating the poem by the rhyme scheme (three quatrains, and then a couplet).  This poem is connected together like a narrative -- unlike the speaker and his "soul." The opening line suggests that there's an argument and the speaker is playing defense, "O never say that I was false of heart."  There's an implication that he was called false of heart.  From hear the speaker then goes on to separate his ...