Sonnet 69 :: essays research papers fc

Sonnet 65(Shakespeare)1 Since brass, nor stone, nor boundless sea, 2 But wistful mortality oer-sways their power,3 How with this rage shall beauty hold a plea,4 Whose action is no stronger than a flower?5 O how shall summertimes honey breath hold out,6 Against the wreckful siege of battring days7 When rocks impregnable are not so stout,8 Nor supply of steel so strong, but time decays?9 O fearful meditation Where, alack, 10 Shall times best jewel from times chest lie hid?11 Or what strong hand can hold his swift foot back,12 Or who his spoil oer beauty can forbid?13 O none, unless this miracle have might14That in black ink my love may still fall d testify bright. Withstanding Mortalitythrough VerseMelissa ZyduckExplication 1Sonnet 65CarducciFeb. 21st, 2001Sonnets are rhymed poems consisting of fourteen lines, the first eight making up the eightsome and the last six lines being the sestet. The basic structure of the sonnet arose in medieval Italy, its most prominent exponent being the Early Renaissance poet, Petrarch. The carriage of the English Sonnet, however, occurred when Shakespeare was an adolescent, around 1580 (Moore and Charmaine 1). Although it is named after him, Shakespeare did not originate the English sonnet form. The English sonnet differs slightly from the Italian, or Petrarchian, Sonnet and the Spenserian Sonnet in that it ends with a rhymed couplet and follows the rhyme scheme (abab cdcd efef gg). Thus, the octet/sestet structure can be alternatively divided into three quatrains with alternating rhymes and ending in a rhymed couplet. William Shakespeares Sonnet 65 is part of a sequence of one hundred and fifty-four sonnets allegedly written sometime surrounded by 1592 and May of 1609 (Duncan 13 Moore and Charmine 1). In sonnets 1 through 126, the speaker addresses a young man often referred to as the Youth, and in sonnets 127 through 154, a woman, or Dark Lady, is addressedSonnet 65 is also part of a unit with Sonnet 64 (Best 1), the two coming together to form their own fearful meditation (9) on time and ruin reaping youth and beauty from the world and leaving only cold death (Cooney 3).Shakespeare opens the poem with the speaker itemisation paradigms of the long-lasting substances brass and stone (1). Earth and boundless sea (1) are also long lasting, but are superior in that they are near limitless in extent. All of these elements, by their nature, should be capable of holding out against sad mortality (2), but none of them are free of its trading operations (Duncan, 240) as it oer-sways their power (2).