Friday, January 12, 2018

Lizzie on Sonnet 55

Shakespeare, Sonnet 55 (Lizzie Britner)


Although this is one of Shakespeare’s most famous sonnets, it stands out because of its differences in tone and beliefs about lasting love. Rather then seeming doubtful or insecure about the complex and unforeseen outcomes of love, Sonnet 55 has a much more confident and determined feel to it. Similar to the other Shakespearean sonnets we have read so far, this one takes the usual form of twelve lines made up of three quatrains, followed by the final couplet.
            In first quatrain, the sonnet argues that even the most grand and magnificent monuments of royalty could not outlive the power of poetry. Therefore, the intense passion the speaker feels for his lover will “shine more bright” in these verses then it could in a statue, or gravestone (3). The second quatrain elaborates on this idea by explaining that material things, such as sculptures or tombstones can all be destroyed by humans and the effects of time. For example, the poet remarks on the fact that things such as war and fire can ruin the memorials that lovers leave behind. But because this poem is a living memory, it cannot be ruined by earthly forces. Moving on to the third quatrain, the focus shifts to the idea that the lover themselves will live on because of this poem. Although time usually leads people to be forgotten, the speaker assures his lover that they will be not be abandoned. Even until the end of humanity, the memory of his lover will never be suppressed. The final couple reiterates that until Judgement Day, when the lover will rise again, they will live immortalized in this poem and in the eyes of all who loved them. And since we are still reading this sonnet hundreds of years later, the speaker seems to have been correct.
            One of the aspects of Sonnet 55 that I found interesting was Shakespeare’s unselfish way of using his poem to immortalize his lover rather than himself. Most poets of this time, and even a majority of writers today, see their work as a way of commemorating themselves rather than someone else. Sonnet 55 never mentions what will become of the poet himself, but instead solely focuses on the memorialization of his lover. This selfless and noble act seems to take Shakespeare’s already complex and arguably unattainable notion of love to an even higher standard.
The picture I decided to include is a statue by William Ordway Partridge of William Shakespeare that can be found in Lincoln Park in Chicago, Illinois. The statue was installed in 1894 and is inscribed with some of Shakespeare’s verses from Hamlet. I choose this picture because I thought it was a little ironic since Sonnet 55 argues against the memorials of statues, yet there are statues of Shakespeare found all over the world.



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