Saturday, January 29, 2011

Shakespeare's "Sonnet 19"

Use this post to comment on Shakespeare's "Sonnet 19". Some potential questions to consider:

What images stand out to you? Why?
What is the overall tone of the poem, and what effect does it have on your reading?
How do Kowit's chapters illuminate the devices the author uses here?

Please also feel free to relay any other impressions, questions, reactions to the poem.

16 comments:

  1. Shakespeare's work always gives me hard time as a Non-native English speaker because it is an older version of Modern English; however, I liked his work ever since I can remember. I liked the rhymes and the overall tone for this sonnet it feels smooth and soft. The images of the lion and the tiger clearly show how time can fade even the strongest. At the end of the sonnet, Shakespeare uses personification to shows how his love is forever young in his writing. - Young Won

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  2. I, even as a native English speaker, also can have difficulty reading Shakespeare. I have to read the poem multiple times to get the most meaning out of it. I do also agree with Young Won in that his works are masterful. It's Shakespeare! He personiies time itself with action words like "pluck." In fact he goes beyond personifying time. The concept is more deified by the power Shakespeare gives it; "make the earth devour her own sweet brood." Time even burns the phoenix, a mighty mythological creature. Shakespeare then empowers himself by capturing a present feeling through his writing on paper. He captures love it its youthful state. The words will stay the same, and although Shakespeare is long since deceased, his works live on. Being classical work, it remains timeless. The tone I have perceived from this poem is determined. The narrator is David, whereas time is goliath. His poetry is the slingshot that stops time from aging, and thus taking away this love.
    - Kevin Clark

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  3. I've actually never read Shakespeare without having to take some advil, but that's beside the point. My first impression of this poem was that the narrater is shallow. To quote Sam from Danny Phantom, "I could stand in a puddle full of [him] and not get my feet wet." I felt that he just "loved" his lover for his youth and nothing else. But, after reading the poem a few times, it started to read differently. I felt that the narrater sounded more like someone asking for mercy from a king or a mob boss after failing to pay their debt. The narrater starts off by writing about how time is so powerful and how it can do whatever it want. He says it can "Pluck the keen teeth from the fierce tiger's jaws, and burn the long-lived phoenix in her blood." And after enough flattery he beings to say that it shouldn't hurt or age his lover. It should spare him from the aging process because others need to see him in his youth! But then the narrator takes a stand and threatens time to do it's worst because even if he won't spare him, in his poetry he will always be young. I thought it was an interesting way to ask for mercy, but I guess to each his own. It feels that he tries to cheat time. Kind of like when people get plastic surgery, but by using his poems as a time capsule to seal the youth and beauty. -Alejandro.

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  5. I have to agree with Young, since I am foreign to the old form of English it is really hard to understand the full meaning of Shakespeare. After reading this poem several time I can understand why Alejandro first impression is that the narrator is shallow. The narrator's love for his lover is based on their physical beauty. I kind of felt that at first too. My interpretation is this sonnet is similar to a picture in the sense that it is capturing a strong moment in the narrator's mind. After reading the poem I tried to put myself in the narrator's shoes, to understand why he would write about just physical beauty. I pictured a girl with skin white as snow. She is in a sun hat and draping white sun dress that hugs her curves, running up the green hills toward a mango tree in the cool summer breeze. The golden heat melts warmly over the scenery. She turns around and waves to me with a bright smile, as the wind picks up and her hair flows naturally with the breeze. If I ever saw anything like that, I might just think it is so beautiful that time should just stop at that moment. Even if I might never see the girl again, that image would be so strong that I would treasure it forever. I would be even so selfish and shallow enough to curse time for destroying that image. But since I cannot stop time, I can capture that moment within writing. This is my understanding of why the poet would write about his lover, he wanted to capture that essence of first love or lust which can be beautiful in itself. My interpretation of the sonnet which might be wrong, but the sonnet did evoke strong imagery. I liked this poem a lot more than I thought I would, well it is Shakespeare (he is pretty good lol). -Khang L.

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  6. Sonnet 19 is one I am already familiar with; I happened to pick it out early in high school as one to discuss for class. It has always impressed me with its forceful energy, and its comprehensibility seems to have survived for a modern audience more easily than that of many of Shakespeare's other works. The change in tone for the final couplet stops the poem from degrading into simple anguished pleading. You can almost imagine him as Zorro or some other suddenly antiquated action hero, on his last legs as always, then having the sudden revelation he needs to win the battle, accompanied by a shout of "Aha!" (or your favorite alternate interjection.) He's spent the whole night, or at least the preceding twelve lines, pleading with his enemy while he devises a way to circumvent its schemes. It's a fantastic poem precisely because it dares declare the reality and permanence of verse in the midst of the constant human fear of loss.

    Also the line "O, carve not with thy hours my love's fair brow," is not only a strong image but one that causes a bit of mental backtracking. When I think of things being carved by time I think of canyon walls and aging statuary, a literal take that is rebuked by the mention of his love (which at once causes us to realize why this is a sonnet to begin with.) That rebuke sends us back to take a less literal meaning of carving, and the effort thus expended tricks us into envisioning a more careful and detailed vision of wrinkles gradually appearing on the face of our personal ideal of beauty.

    It's basically amazing. Read it again.

    -Mark Henrickson-Mattson

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  7. I had a similar experience to Alejandro. I'm a fan of Shakespeare but my first read-through definitely left me feeling as though there was something shallow about the narration. I think the conclusions of Alejandro and Mark are apt-- the Zorro-like ingenious plot at the end; the initial pleading to a force greater than he can control.

    I also enjoyed Khang's way of interpreting the poem. It was interesting to read a different version of the same story (or a similar story) and compare his imagination to the sonnet that we read.

    What astonishes me most about Shakespeare, or at least this particular sonnet, is how effortlessly the rhyme seems to flow. The metered couplets didn't even register to me at first because the words were well-picked enough that they seemed to simply fit. It was a great example of rhyme that did not intrude on the poem's presentation, but made it better by subtly providing the reader with rhythm and pleasing sounds.

    -Julia Douglas

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  8. Shakespeare seems to give a lot of readers, native-language or not, trouble. I must sadly admit that I am one of the many intimidated by Shakespeare. Usually when I am told to read Shakespeare, I glance at the paper, let my eyes glaze over, and begin to daydream. But this sonnet does have some strong images and language that stuck out to me. Particularly the line about the phoenix. We all know that the phoenix is a mythical bird that catches fire and is born again in its ashes. Throwing the word “blood” into the line adds even more visual. There is a lot of red going on here: The Phoenix is sometimes depicted as a red bird, the fire, and the blood. It creates a very strong image, maybe for me it is the mystical aspect surrounding the word phoenix. Shakespeare uses a lot of alliteration and assonance in the sonnet. When read aloud, you can hear a lot of 'w' sounds and 'aw' or 'ow' sounds. This adds to the tone of the sonnet. The tone is kind of an encompassing feeling. The 'aw' and 'ow' sounds stretch the mouth and go along with words like “devour”.

    --Raygene Miller

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  9. I actually read the two other poems first before I clicked the link to Shakespeare because I have a really difficult time with understanding what the poem was even about. After re-reading the poem a few times I came to notice and understand more clearly. The tone of the sonnet seems rough and stern. I get that feelings because of the harsh words; devour, fierce, burn, blood, and forbid. I found I enjoyed the similarity of the personification of time in this poem as well as Auden's. An image that really stood out to me was from the words "swift-footed Time." I find it very interesting for these authors to see time in a similar light as if they're trying to defeat it or it's effecting them negatively.

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  10. I am a fan of Shakespeare's plays and have read "The Tempest" and "Twelfth Night." His poetry; however, always leaves me wanting. Not wanting more mind you, but wanting the poem to have said something else/ something more. I have read so many love poems- even those with forceful images and a hero-like male lead. I sometimes forget that Shakespeare preceded most of the modern authors that have turned me off to romantic poetry. Taking with a bit of tolerance and an understanding that this was relatively 'new' to society in Shakespeares day, I can stomach some of the more love-sick lines "O, carve not with thy hours, my love's fair brow" or in my words: Please do not let my lover become unattractive with wrinkles and sagging breasts! I agree that there is a shallow side to Shakespeare...he is not a man I would wish to bed if I were walking the line between present youth and future middle-age- crows feet, laugh lines and all.

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  11. I completely agree with Raygene in the fact that Shakespeare, although dead for many a years, was a man who could intimidate future generations through his writing and language alone. I believe he is, in a literary sense, a perfect example of how the pen is mightier than the sword. This sonnet gave me a very vivid image of Time being represented as an all-consuming beast and Shakespeare, although terrified of its terrible power over everything, is trying to stand strong. The opening of the sonnet was a bit confusing but as he continued, I quickly understood that the image Shakespeare wanted to convey was not only is Time a very powerful force, it is almost monstrous. I particularly like the line where he says "I forbid thee one most heinous crime." There is a sense of empowerment in the way Shakespeare claims that he "forbids" Time from doing something. Also within the words “most heinous crime,” just based on the sound of the words, I could almost hear Shakespeare hissing out the words as if making a threat. Although I am not perfectly sure of my opinion, I thought the latter half of the sonnet was about Shakespeare taking his stand against Time; immortalizing his love within his words. Just as the imagery and diction made Time seem very overpowering and frightening, I feel as if Shakespeare suddenly turns to deep affection as he warns Time away from aging his lover. I found it very ironic and slightly humorous in the way the words suddenly seemed more gentle and affection.

    -Jennie Hwangpo

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  13. Whenever I read one of Shakespeare's sonnets, I find myself unaffected by it until the last four or five lines because I know that is about the point when he is going to bring everything together. Then, I go back and reread the lines before the end so that I can better understand them with a more complete idea of the poem as a whole.

    Two images that really jumped out at me were the lines "Pluck the keen teeth from the fierce tiger's jaws," and "O, carve not with thy hours my love's fair brow,/Nor draw no lines there with thine antique pen;". As strange as it may sound, I was able to actually picture a tiger's teeth falling out and a mystical pen drawing in wrinkles and visibly aging someone as it moved across their face.

    I think the poem's overall tone is one of frustration. Shakespeare realizes that he is not in control of time or aging, nor the physical effects that accompany them. Despite all this, we still find him pleading with time to be merciful to his beloved. It speaks of a lover who is willing to try the impossible to preserve the youthful delights that he finds himself in the midst of and simultaneously realizes will not last forever. I think it is also important to point out that Shakespeare is not being as shallow as he may seem because at the end of the poem, he mentions that even if his love must age, his passions will not.

    In regards to the Kowit reading, Sonnet 19 is full of alliteration: "And burn the long-lived phoenix in her blood;", "Make glad and sorry seasons as thou fleets,", "To the wide world and all her fading sweets;". He also uses the long i vowel sound a lot, and it works because any long vowel sound brings this lyrical sense of a more drawn out emotion to my mind. Given the context of Shakespeare pleading, it seems very appropriate.

    -Tyler Lyon-

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  14. I can see how this poem would give a lot of difficulty to someone who does not speak English as their native language. I am a native speaker and it is still hard. Getting past all of the imagery of the lion as time devouring the world, Shakespeare asks time not to take the beauty from his love. He realizes that this will not happen so he makes the statement at the end of the poem that his lover's beauty will always be young in his poems. The imagery of time as a savage beast was my favorite part. Ive never been a big Shakespeare reader but have seen many of his plays, and read many of his works, although I had not read this one until today. It is very quick, precise, and although the point of the poem is not discovered until halfway through, it is very well written and does a good job of creating some sort of feeling within the reader. I do not have a lot of mental images in my head though when I read this, it is very short.

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  15. This poem had excellent imagery, but as with most Shakespeare, the meaning was difficult to understand.

    Some imagery I liked:
    Devouring Time, blunt though the lion's paws,
    And make the earth devour her own sweet brood;
    Pluck the keen teeth from the fierce tiger's jaws,
    And burn the long-lived phoenix in her blood;

    I liked this imagery, because it was a very powerful, and in some lines dark, beginning to the poem.

    The overall tone from the poem felt that it was almost arrogant or domineering. It felt like the author was trying to prove something.

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  16. Tyler's comment reminded me that time in this sonnet is a personification and even more that the images that the tiger's teeth sometimes do come out in real life and that aging lines occur naturally. I think the tone is sort of knowingly self defeating and playfully witty/mocking in that shakespeare knows he can't make a bargain with time and he's trying to create an imaginary scenario to try and appreciate the chance that maybe his verses will last forever, and some hundreds of years later we're still reading them. Kowit chapter 7 goes over the way in which writers emulate a "poetic" way of speaking and this archetype was mainly originated by Shakespeare and those before him like Chaucer. I think Shakespeare would want us today to write poetry the way we speak today and not to copy him.

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