Poetry Essay
...th devour her own sweet brood;”. In the last two lines of the first quatrain, lines 3-4, Shakespeare refers to a tiger and phoenix, in which he says that time can make even the most fierce tiger grow old to the point that his teeth will fall out and that you can even make the phoenix, which is a legendary bird that had a life span of more than 500 years, die eventually even though when they die, they are reborn from their ashes, “Pluck the keen teeth from the fierce tiger's jaws, And burn the long-lived phoenix in her blood;”. With quatrain two, Shakespeare comments on time saying that you may do whatever you please, making the seasons, good ones or bad ones, come and go year after year with your onrushing, never-ending flow to anything on earth, “Make glad and sorry seasons as thou fleets, And do whate'er thou wilt, swift-footed Time, To the wide world and all her fading sweets;”. Then with the last line of quatrain two, Shakespeare says that even though time may do whatever it wants, the poet forbids time to do one thing, “But I forbid thee one most heinous crime:”. The overall message coming through from quatrain two was basically saying that you (time) may destroy the beauty of everything in nature, but in the end, the poet will not allow time to do one thing. This “one most heinous crime” aspect then follows through into quatrain three. At the start of quatrain three, as it was a carry on from the last line from quatrain two, the poet declares that time shall never put age's wrinkles on the forehead of his love. He (the poet is talking about a young, good-looking male friend, whom the poet loves platonically) shall live forever young, untouched and untainted by the ravages of time, to be viewed in all his youthful splendor by future generations to admire. He will stay young without aging because his poetry will preserve him as being young forever, “O, carve not with thy hours my love's fair brow, Nor draw no lines there with thine antique pen; Him in thy course untainted do allow For beauty's pattern to succeeding men.” Then in the last couplet, the poet confronts time stating that even with time’s worst ravages, his male love shall be young forever in the poet’s poetry, where his beauty will be untainted, untouched and forever eternal for future generations to marvel at, “Yet, do thy worst, old Time: despite thy wrong, My love shall in my verse ever live young.” In the end, sonnet 19 seemed to be concerned more with the preservation of youthful beauty, against the ravages of time, where the poet appeared to be obsessed with his young friend's youthful beauty, in which he wants it to last forever. The theme, which was that even though time devastates all, youth can still be preserved forever in the lines of a poem, was achieved by using several figurative devices such as personification and secondary motifs (sub-themes related to the general theme). From the start to finish, the poet addressed time as though it were a person: “Devouring Time, blunt thou…”; “Yet, do thy worst, old Time: despite thy…”. Furthermore, the poet created little motifs or sub-themes on top of all this. In the first quatrain (lines 1-4) there is the devouring/consuming/predatory motif, relating to the destructive nature of time. In the third quatrain (lines 9-12) there is the motif of the old as something vile that soils the new, relating to the idea that time will eventually destroy the young man’s youth (“carve”, “fair brow”, “lines”, “antique pen”, ”untainted”, “beauty’s patter”). Lastly, in quatrain two (lines 5-8) and the couplet (lines 13-14) there is the sub-theme or crime, relating to the idea that what Time does to youth is “criminal” (“forbid”, “heinous crime”, “wrong”). The other poem, sonnet 104, Shakespeare also has the poem dealing with the concept of time. The theme of sonnet 104, the passage and ravages of time, is one common throughout all of the sonnets, as like in sonnet 19. Here the poet uses his fond memories of first meeting his lover as inspiration to write the poem. It is clear from sonnet 104, and the other sonnets as a whole, that the passion he feels for his male lover, is the most intense experience the poet has ever encountered. Nothing is important but his lover; his lover is eternal, both in beauty and spirit. Quatrain one and two sees Shakespeare rave about his male friend saying that he can never be old bec...