Shakespeare's Sonnets - Analysis

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THEMES/STYLE
Nature imagery
Sonnet 64:
When I have seen the hungry ocean gain
Advantage on the kingdom of the shore
Woman as better than nature
Sonnet 18:
 Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate
Self-referential poetry
Sonnet 18
So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.
Sonnet 19
 Yet, do thy worst old Time: despite thy wrong,
My love shall in my verse ever live young.
Sonnet 24
My body is the frame wherein 'tis held,
And perspective it is best painter's art.
Sonnet 76:
So all my best is dressing old words new,
Spending again what is already spent
Men as ruling nature
Sonnet 19
But I forbid thee one most heinous crime:
O! carve not with thy hours my love's fair brow

Woman created by nature (surpassing god)
Sonnet 19
A woman's face with nature's own hand painted
Gender as ambiguous
Sonnet 20
A woman's face with nature's own hand painted,
Hast thou, the master mistress of my passion;
A woman's gentle heart, but not acquainted
With shifting change, as is false women's fashion:
Men as objects of affection
Sonnet 20
A man in hue all hues in his controlling,
Which steals men's eyes and women's souls amazeth.
Physical manifestations of love
Sonnet 22
Is but the seemly raiment of my heart,
Which in thy breast doth live, as thine in me
Sonnet 24
Mine eyes have drawn thy shape, and thine for me
Are windows to my breast
Mortality
Sonnet 22
My glass shall not persuade me I am old,
So long as youth and thou are of one date;
…
How can I then be elder than thou art?
O! therefore love, be of thyself so wary
…
Presume not on thy heart when mine is slain,
Thou gav'st me thine not to give back again.

Sonnet 64
Ruin hath taught me thus to ruminate
That Time will come and take my love away.
This thought is as a death which cannot choose
But weep to have that which it fears to lose.
Love as immortalizing
Sonnet 25:
 The painful warrior famoused for fight,
After a thousand victories once foiled,
Is from the book of honour razed quite,
And all the rest forgot for which he toiled:
Then happy I, that love and am beloved,
Where I may not remove nor be removed
Astrology
Sonnet 25:
Let those who are in favour with their stars
Of public honour and proud titles boast
Economical imagery
Money to describe beauty in Sonnet 64:
When I have seen by Time's fell hand defac'd
The rich proud cost of outworn buried age
Sonnet 75:
As 'twixt a miser and his wealth is found
Sonnet 77:
These offices, so oft as thou wilt look,
Shall profit thee and much enrich thy book.
Sonnet 79:
And found it in thy cheek: he can afford
No praise to thee, but what in thee doth live.
Then thank him not for that which he doth say,
Since what he owes thee, thou thyself dost pay.

OTHER REFLECTIONS

 The Power of Love
In sonnet 30, love erases pain of regret and dead friends.
In sonnet 75, love is as important as food.
In sonnet 76, love, despite being a constant state of being is always seemingly new.
Sonnet 46 evokes the humors, air and fire, as responsible for a person's health. Shakespeare adds two additional elements, his thoughts of his beloved and his desire for her. When he gives her these as a token of his love he is immediately at ill health. This is reminiscent of Dante, who also uses similar imagery of love as the robber of strength.


William Shakespeare. Illustration source

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