Appreciating
Poetry - Second semester of First year
B.A. Degree English Core Course
1. William Shakespeare – “Shall I compare thee to a Summer’s Day?” (Sonnet
xviii)
The narrator in the Sonnet xviii of William
Shakespeare compares his beloved to the summer season in Nature. Many defects
of summer season are described here. Sometimes rough winds blow heavily and
shake the beautiful flowers and buds and spoil them. Sometimes summer days are
very hot and unbearable for plants and human beings and animals. Finally, the
life span of summer is very short. But in comparison with the summer season,
the beloved of the narrator is more handsome and lovelier.
The narrator makes three arguments. He compares
his beloved to the beauty of Nature. But time is a villiain and destroys every
beautiful and bright thing in Nature. Thirdly his poetry will live longer than
his beloved. The life span of summer season is very short and the beloved is
like the summer season. So the narrator plans to increase the life span of his
beloved. He immortalizes the glory of the beloved through the lines of his
poetry. There is an inner meaning to the term ‘line’. It is the meaning of
grafting of the branches of two different trees. The beloved is the weaker
branch. But when it is grafted with the
branch of his poetry, it becomes stronger than ever before.
Now the
narrator speaks about the cruelties of Time who is always portrayed by
Shakespeare as ‘Villain’. Time destroys the beauty of nature and human beings.
Young becomes old and create full of wrinkles and dirty looking. Every
beautiful flower lost its colour and beauty by the cruelties of Time. Finally
time kills all beautiful young men and women. But the narrator wants to prolong
the life span of his young handsome man. The narrator says that his poetry will
be read and enjoyed by people all over
the world and thereby the unknown handsome young man also be made immortal
through his poetry.
Questions
and answers
1.
What
is the beloved compared to by the narrator in Shakespeare’s poem? - In Shakespeare’s Sonnet xviii, the narrator
compares the beloved to a summer’s day because in England summer’s days is more
beautiful than any other days in winter, autumn or spring. Summer days are the
most beautiful days of the year in the cold country. It is during summer days,
that flower plants blossom and everywhere green carpeted meadows and hills are
seen intoxicating our eyes and minds.
2.
Comment
on the imagery in the poem. The narrator in the Sonnet xviii of William
Shakespeare titled “Shall I compare thee to a Summer’s Day?” makes lots of comparisons. The unknown
handsome young man who is the beloved of the narrator is more beautiful than a
summer’s day which is full of bright sunlight with green carpeted meadows,
hills and valleys and bubbling brooks,
and thousands of fragrant flowers and buds. Time is another imagery and
the Villain destroys every beauty
of Nature. But the narrator protects his
beloved from the cruelties of Time by
immortalizing him through his poetry which is widely read and be enjoyed by
people all over the world. The narrator is confident that as long as his poetry
is enjoyed by human beings, his beloved will live for ever.
😍😍😍excellent
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