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'Sonnet 55' -William Shakespeare (Literary Devices (Rhyme Scheme,…
'Sonnet 55'
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William Shakespeare
Analysis
Sonnet 55 is one of Shakespeare's most famous works and a deviation from other sonnets. Here we find an impassioned burst of confidence as the poet claims to have the power to keep his friend's memory alive evermore (Shakespeare Online, 2008).
Sonnet 55 is about the endurance of love, preserved within the words of the sonnet itself (Owlcation, 2017).
Shakespeare was undoubtedly inspired by 'Ovid in his Metamorphoses' (Owlcation, 2017).
Sonnet 55 is a Shakespearean or English sonnet, having 14 lines made up of three distinct quatrains and an end couplet (Owlcation, 2017).
Literary Devices
Rhyme Scheme
The rhyme scheme is ababcdcdefefgg and the end rhymes are all full, for example:
rhyme/time, room/doom, arise/eyes.
Personification
Line 1+ 2- Shakespeare writes that monuments cannot outlive his verse as if monuments were alive
Line 4- Time is personified as being "sluttish"
Assonance
Line 3- "shine more bright"
Alliteration
Line 1- "Not marble nor the gilded monuments"
Line 2- "princes" and "powerful" in the second line
Line 3- "shall shine" and
Line 5- "wasteful war"
(eNotes.com, 2020)
Poet
William Shakespeare
April 1564—23 April 1616 (Encyclopædia Britannica, 2020).
English Poet during the Renaissance era (Encyclopædia Britannica, 2020
Themes
Love
The poem does not contain a lot of declarations, but a ton of implied feelings. Love is the reason this poem is being written, the source of the praise, and the reason that this beloved's memory will outlast the entire world.
In his sonnets he mounts a tricky and passionate resistance movement against time and its tyranny over young lovers everywhere. By writing this poem, he turns the tables on time and outwits even death itself. His art makes his love eternal.
Time
Memory and the Past
This love is about the persistence of memory and the chance of the beloved achieving eternal life. He wants "live forever," not "love forever."
Warfare
He first shows us how war will destroy everything that makes cities beautiful. Only his poetry will escape. And since his poetry only exists to praise his beloved, that will escape too.
(Shmoop, 2008)