What kind of sonnets did shakespeare write

His sonnets focus on physical beauty rather than intellectual beauty. Regarding the theme of time, Shakespeare asserts that only love and poetry or another type of writing are the only phenomena that can counter time.

In line 3, Shakespeare brings up the theme of the power of time, saying that everything that is beautiful will eventually lose its beauty and die.

He is saying that the young man needs not to think about himself so much. Sometimes I lose the ability to express my love, but realise it is there — in the silence of what I have already written. Your love compensates for everything. In solitude, the poet takes stock of his failures. Until he thinks consolingly of you.

When I call to mind the past, I grieve; but when I think of you, my sense of loss and my grief end. Why did you betray me? Give me the come on then reject me. You have let me suffer and your trying to rescue the situation, and being repentant, does not help. But your tears do. Continuing the theme of absence, the poet wishes his body could move with the same agility as his thoughts. If only I were made of thought so that I could fly quickly to wherever you are!

But I am only made of heavy elements and must wait for time to reunite us. My poetry will outlast buildings and cities. Nothing will outlive my rhyme and the way it immortalises you, until you yourself are resurrected from the dead. Listen - I am entirely subservient to you in both my thoughts and my deeds, but I am aware that you may be fooling around.

I am your slave, and have nothing better to do than to wait around for you. My love for you will excuse anything you do. The inevitable process of maturity and decay can only be counteracted by my verse. Our minutes pass, and time destroys everything that it once made beautiful. But my poetry will survive, praising you. I am so sick and tired of things as they are, that I am looking forward to death — except that in dying I would leave my loved one alone.

Let your mourning for me be short. I would rather you forget me, even when you read my poem, than be unhappy, for which you might be mocked. I am in the winter and sunset of my life, an old, fading fire. But seeing me like this might make your love for me even stronger. Concluding that this would only strengthen their love. He acknowledges the superiority of the rival poet.

He and his rival are compared to two different kinds of ships. Farewell, you are too precious for me to keep, and I was mistaken in your love.

And wherefore say not I that I am old? Now see what good turns eyes for eyes have done: Mine eyes have drawn thy shape, and thine for me Are windows to my breast, where-through the sun Delights to peep, to gaze therein on thee; Yet eyes this cunning want to grace their art; They draw but what they see, know not the heart.

Him have I lost; thou hast both him and me: He pays the whole, and yet am I not free. Thou art more lovely and more temperate. So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see, So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

Let me not to the marriage of true minds Admit impediments. If this be error and upon me proved, I never writ, nor no man ever loved. I love to hear her speak, yet well I know That music hath a far more pleasing sound; I grant I never saw a goddess go; My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground: And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare As any she belied with false compare.

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Narrative of the Sonnets The majority of the sonnets are addressed to a young man, with whom the poet has an intense romantic relationship. The poet spends the first seventeen sonnets trying to convince the young man to marry and have children; beautiful children that will look just like their father, ensuring his immortality.

Many of the remaining sonnets in the young man sequence focus on the power of poetry and pure love to defeat death and "all oblivious enmity" The final sonnets are addressed to a promiscuous and scheming woman known to modern readers as the dark lady. Both the poet and his young man have become obsessed with the raven-haired temptress in these sonnets, and the poet's whole being is at odds with his insatiable "sickly appetite" The tone is distressing, with language of sensual feasting, uncontrollable urges, and sinful consumption.

For a closer look at the negative aspects of the poet's relationship with the young man and his mistress, please see Sonnet 75 and Sonnet For a celebration of the love between the young man and the poet, see Sonnet 18 and Sonnet