Poetry / Poesía: William Shakespeare: “Sonnet CXVI” / “Soneto CXVI”.-

♠Poetry / Poesía:

William Shakespeare: “Sonnet  CXVI” / “Soneto CXVI”:

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♠Poesía: William Shakespeare: “Soneto CXVI”:

Soneto 116 en castellano.-

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♠William Shakespeare: “Sonnet 116”:

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♠William Shakespeare: “Sonnet 116”:  “Let me not to the marriage of true minds”:

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♠William Shakespeare´s Sonnet 116:

“Summary & Analysis”:

Shakespeare´s Sonnet 116  was first published in 1609. Its structure and form are a typical example of the Shakespearean Sonnet

The poet begins by stating he should not stand in the way of true love. Love cannot be true if it changes for any reason. Love is supposed to be constant, through any difficulties. In the sixth line, a nautical reference is made, alluding that love is much like the north star to sailors. Love should also not fade with time; instead, true love lasts forever.

This sonnet attempts to define love, by telling both what it is and is not. In the first quatrain, the speaker says that love—”the marriage of true minds”—is perfect and unchanging; it does not “admit impediments,” and it does not change when it find changes in the loved one. In the second quatrain, the speaker tells what love is through a metaphor: a guiding star to lost ships (“wand’ring barks”) that is not susceptible to storms (it “looks on tempests and is never shaken”). In the third quatrain, the speaker again describes what love is not: it is not susceptible to time. Though beauty fades in time as rosy lips and cheeks come within “his bending sickle’s compass,” love does not change with hours and weeks: instead, it “bears it out ev’n to the edge of doom.” In the couplet, the speaker attests to his certainty that love is as he says: if his statements can be proved to be error, he declares, he must never have written a word, and no man can ever have been in love.

The poet makes his point clear from line 1: true love always perseveres, despite any obstacles that may arise. He goes on to define love by what it doesn’t do, claiming that it stays constant, even though people and circumstances may change. Love never dies, even when someone tries to destroy it. Rather than being something that comes and goes, love is eternal and unchanging – so much so that the poet compares it to the North Star, which never moves in the sky and guides lost ships home. This metaphorical star is mysterious and perhaps incomprehensible, even though we can chart its location.

Moving on to a new image, love isn’t at the beck and call of time (or time’s consequences, age and death); mortality isn’t an issue for true love, which doesn’t fade even when youth and beauty disappear. Love doesn’t change as the days go by; rather, it remains strong until the lover’s dying day (or beyond…chew on that for a while).

Finally, the poet stakes his own reputation on this definition, boldly claiming that if anyone can prove him wrong, he’ll eat his words. That is to say, if this idea of love turns out to be wrong, then he’ll take back everything he wrote and it’ll be as though it never existed. Furthermore, if this specific portrayal of love is somehow proved to be the wrong one, then nobody, as far as the poet is concerned, has ever loved at all.

 

Along with Sonnets 18 (“Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?”) and 130 (“My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun”), Sonnet 116 is one of the most famous poems in the entire sequence. The definition of love that it provides is among the most often quoted and anthologized in the poetic canon. Essentially, this sonnet presents the extreme ideal of romantic love: it never changes, it never fades, it outlasts death and admits no flaw. What is more, it insists that this ideal is the only love that can be called “true”—if love is mortal, changing, or impermanent, the speaker writes, then no man ever loved. 

In the first quatrain Shakespeare uses repetition of the words “love” and “love” (line 2), “alters” and “alteration” (line 3) and “remover” and “remove” (line 4) to create a feeling of constancy and strength.  This complements his allusion to the marriage ceremony in line one. (Grimes, 2007)

The second quatrain uses two metaphors to describe love, both concerned with light, navigation and the sea. 

The first metaphor compares love to “an ever-fixed mark” such as a lighthouse, used by sailors during bad weather to avoid peril. 

The second compares love to a star, a light in the heavens which can be used to navigate by, but “whose worth’s unknown”.  This second image is the most interesting for how many decisions are made on a daily basis in the name of an emotion that is not really understood.

The second quatrain explains how love is unchanging. According to  Neely, “Love is a star, remote, immovable, self-contained, and perhaps, like the ‘lords and owners of their faces,’ improbably and even somewhat unpleasantly cold and distant.”  The second quatrain continues Shakespeare’s attempt to define love, but in a more direct way

Shakespeare mentions “it” in the second quatrain according to Douglas Trevor, “The constancy of love in sonnet 116, the “it” of line five of the poem, is also – for the poet – the poetry, the object of love itself.” Not only is there a direct address to love itself, the style Shakespeare’s contemplation becomes more direct. Erne states, “Lines five to eight stand in contrast to their adjacent quatrains, and they have their special importance by saying what love is rather than what it is not.” This represents a change in Shakespeare’s view that love is completely undefinable. This concept of unchanging love is focused in the statement, “love is an ever-fixed mark’. 

The first two lines of quatrain three (lines 9 – 10) tell us that although physical beauty, “rosy lips and cheeks”, may fade and die, love is not affected by time. This sentence is interesting for a few reasons. Firstly Time is personified by referring to it as “him” but it is also compared to Death, always a close relative anyway, by giving “him” a “bending sickle”, the Grim Reapers scythe.

The last two lines of quatrain three (11-12) sum up the point of the whole poem: love doesn’t change over time. It endures the passing of time, which is depicted as fleeting and “brief,” and lasts until “the edge of doom,” otherwise known as Judgment Day, the end of time, or whatever you want to call it.

The final two lines of the sonnet (couplet) provide a dramatic and quite bold closing statement.

Line 13 uses rather legalistic language to basically say, “If these ideas are wrong and anyone can prove that I’m incorrect…”

The final line resolves this challenge through a somewhat complicated twist; by saying that the poet has never written anything and that nobody has ever really been in love before if love actually turns out to be less than eternal, the poem’s truth immediately becomes impossible to dispute.

As Linda Gregerson highlights in her article on Shakespeare´s “Sonnet 116”:

“The couplet represents a last, desperate attempt to regain control. It rests upon a sort of buried syllogism: I am obviously a writer (witness this poem); I assert that love is constant; therefore love must be constant. As any logician could testify, however, these premises have no necessary relationship to their conclusion. The couplet is designed to shut down all opposition, to secure the thing (unchanging love) the poem has staked its heart on. It is sheer bravado, and of course it fails. What fails as logical proof, however, succeeds quite brilliantly as poetry”.

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“Shakespeare´s Sonnet 116”: “Slideshare”:

“Which is the Central Idea in Sonnet 116?”. Click above to watch the video.

Click above to search for more topics regarding Sonnet 116.-

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William Shakespeare (1564-1616).-

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Links Post:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonnet_116

http://www.shmoop.com/sonnet-116/summary.html 

http://www.shakespeares-sonnets.com/sonnet/116

http://www.sparknotes.com/shakespeare/shakesonnets/section7.rhtml

http://www.theatlantic.com/past/docs/unbound/poetry/soundings/shakespeare.htm

http://barraoc.hubpages.com/hub/Sonnet-116-by-William-Shakespeare-An-Analysis

https://aquileana.wordpress.com/2013/10/15/poetry-william-shakespeare-soneto-xviii-sonnet-xviii/

http://www.shakespeares-sonnets.com/sonnet/130

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John Keats: “Bright Star” (Sonnet) / “Estrella Brillante” (Soneto).-

♠Poetry / Poesia: John Keats:

“Bright Star”  (Sonnet) / “Estrella Brillante” (Soneto):

John Keats (1795 / 1821).-

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♠Poesía: John Keats: “Estrella Brillante”: Reseña:

“Si firme y constante fuera yo, brillante estrella, como tú”… es el inicio del último poema que escribió John Keats el 28 de septiembre de 1820, mientras se alejaba de la isla de Wight,  rumbo a  Nápoles. El viaje a Italia era la última oportunidad de conquistar lo imposible, que en su caso, era buscar una posibilidad de sanar de la tuberculosis que persiguió como una epidemia a varios miembros de su familia. 

El poema “Estrella Brillante “fue  uno de sus últimos poemas, dedicándoselo a su amada Fanny Brawne. Exceptuando los que escribió por pura desesperación en el puerto de Nápoles durante la cuarentena que le obligó a estar encerrado en el navío María Crowther durante una semana. 

 “Estrella Brillante ” es uno de los poemas románticos de Keats, que tanto su amigo Charles Brown en Inglaterra como su fiel y último compañero Joseph Severn en Italia, coincidieron en definirlos como la melancolía de lo inalcanzable.

John Keats murió en los brazos de su amigo Joseph Severn el 23 de febrero de 1821, en el 26 de la Plaza de España, en la ciudad de Roma. Está enterrado en el Cementerio Protestante de aquella ciudad. Junto a él está enterrado Joseph Severn y también las cenizas del poeta Shelley.

Según lo reglamentado por las autoridades italianas, todos los muebles de Keats fueron quemados, menos un piano, porque era alquilado. Los suelos, ventanas y paredes del cuarto fueron destruidos y mandados a hacer de nuevo. Los empapelados de las paredes fueron removidos y renovados. Se hacía así siempre con las víctimas de tuberculosis.

Fanny Brawne se enteró de la muerte de John Keats un mes después. Pasó en duelo seis años. El poema “Estrella brillante” se publicó por primera vez en 1838, diecisiete años después de la muerte de Keats.

En su lápida está labrada una lira de ocho cuerdas, cuatro de ellas rotas. Y las palabras que pidió fueran grabadas sobre su tumba: “Aquí yace aquel cuyo nombre fue escrito en el agua” (“Here Lies One whose name was writ in water”).

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►ENGLISH SECTION ►

♠Poetry: John Keats: “Bright Star” (Sonnet):

John Keats´s poem: Bright Star”.-

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♠Audio Video: Sonnet By John Keats:

“Bright Star” (“Bright Star, Would I were Stedfast as thou Art”)

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♠”Analysis of John Keats´s Sonnet Bright Star”: 

Colleen Walles highlights on her thorough article on Romanticism at  HSC Online that:

“The bright star in the sonnet can be a metaphorical conceit for the appeal and danger of fickle, female sexuality as in “La Belle Dame Sans Merci”. Keats identifies with the evening star and the symbolism is organic in the octave even when he rejects isolation and identification with nature. He implicitly contrasts the sublime and eternal beauty of nature to human life and individual freedom. The sestet privileges concrete over abstract but undermine notions of permanence by paradoxical passivity and a downward movement to acceptance of loss and death”.

As Patrick Gillespie craftily highlights on his post “Bright Star by John Keats, His Sonnet” at PoemShape.wordpress.com

“Bright Star is one of Keats’s earlier poems and I can’t help but detect the opening of Shakespeare´s Sonnet 116

Shakespeare equates love to a star and this association was surely present in Keats’ s mind from the time he first read Shakespeare’s Sonnet. That is, the star isn’t only a symbol of steadfastness and stability, but also love. And love, in Keats’s mind, is unchangeable and ever-fixèd (or else it isn’t love)”.

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Click on Shakespeare´s Sonnet to read its analysis.-

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John Keats (1795 / 1821).-

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♠”Bright Star” By John Keats: Sonnet Structure:

(Credit: Patrick Gillespie, “Bright Star by John Keats, His Sonnet” at PoemShape.wordpress.com)

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♠Structure of John Keats´s  Sonnet “Bright Star”:

In many of Keats’s poems, the speaker leaves the real world to explore a transcendent, mythical, or aesthetic realm. At the end of the poem, the speaker returns to his ordinary life transformed in some way and armed with a new understanding. Often the appearance or contemplation of a beautiful object makes the departure possible. The ability to get lost in a reverie, to depart conscious life for imaginative life without wondering about plausibility or rationality, is part of Keats’s concept of negative capability. In “Bright star, would I were stedfast as thou art,” the speaker imagines a state of “sweet unrest” in which he will remain half-conscious on his lover’s breast forever. As speakers depart this world for an imaginative world, they have experiences and insights that they can then impart into poetry once they’ve returned to conscious life. 

The final rhyming couplet speaks of life and death. He wishes to ‘live ever’ listening to her ‘tender-taken breath’, ‘or else swoon in death’. Here once again we can observe the interaction between the moment and eternity – if he continues to love her he will live eternally, stedfast like the star. If he ceases to hear her breath – ceases to love – he will die. Interestingly, this last line could almost be the volta in the poem – as the love seems to for the first time to question whether the moment, love, will last forever, and what the alternative would be.

As Lilia Melani points out in her analysis of Keats ´s sonnet at academicbrooklyn.cuny.edu:

“Once the poet eliminates the non-human qualities of the star, he is left with just the quality of steadfastness. He can now define steadfastness in terms of human life on earth, in the world of love and movement. As in so many poems, Keats is grappling with the paradox of the desire for permanence and a world of timelessness and eternity (the star) while living in a world of time and flux. The paradox is resolved by the end of the poem: joy and fulfillment are to be found here, now; he needs no more. There is a possible ambiguity in the last line; is Keats saying that even if love doesn’t enable him to live forever, he will die content in ecstasy and love?”

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♠John Keats´s  Sonnet “Bright Star”: Allusions & Meanings (Modern English):

(Credit: Lilia Melani: Analysis of “Bright Star”)

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♠Original Manuscript of  Keats´s Sonnet “Bright Star” (1819):

This famous sonnet was written by Keats in his copy of ‘The Poetical Works of William Shakespeare’ (1819).-

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♠Links Post:

http://anywayidontcare.blogspot.com.ar/2011/12/poemas-de-john-keats.html?spref=tw

http://canal-literatura.com/blog/sin-categoria/homenaje-a-john-keats-el-poeta-de-la-melancolia-inalcanzable/

http://www.sparknotes.com/poetry/keats/themes.html

http://www.press.uchicago.edu/Misc/Chicago/542409.html 

http://poemshape.wordpress.com/2009/05/10/bright-star-by-john-keats-his-sonnet/

http://academic.brooklyn.cuny.edu/english/melani/cs6/star.html

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fg2QoGJ4-h0 (Trailer”Bright Star”)

https://aquileana.wordpress.com/2013/09/21/poesia-john-keats-al-otono-poetry-john-keats-to-autumn/ (“To Autumn”, Poem By John Keats)

https://aquileana.wordpress.com/2009/04/25/john-keats-la-belle-dame-sans-merci/ (“La Belle Dame Sans Merci”. Poem By John Keats).

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❖Worth Reading❖ A Sonnet by Irina Dimitric:

“My Sweet Rose” at Irina´s Poetry Corner

►MY SWEET ROSE►

How sweet and pure thy perfume grows,
As sweet as seasoned showers to the ground
Upon which thy gracious beauty glows,
I swear my love for ever to thee bound.
Ah, my sweetest rose! I long and pine
For cosy softness of thy velvet shine.
Come, do not tarry! Make haste ere Time’s quick pace
Hath ploughed the furrow through my flesh and bones.
Why did thou forsake me? Thou needed space?
For thou did love me, that too, the Almighty knows.
But when I sleep, our two hearts meet in dreams,
My groaning melancholy gone in thy embrace.

All days as nights do seem to me
Until the day my eyes see thee.

© irina dimitric 2013

இڿڰۣ-ڰۣ—

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Irina Dimitric Dixit:

The first version of this poem was written in 2011 for Wednesday Writing Essential prompt at gather.com:

‘Write a response without any verbs of being and at least one allusion to Shakespeare.’ We were allowed to borrow a line from Shakespeare. Line Two in this poem is borrowed from one of his sonnets; I might still, one day, find which one! Or, perhaps you could find it for me. However, I did find the sonnet which provided the idea for my final couplet: it is Sonnet 43

I started revising the poem three days ago, polishing the metre and rhyme. It was Aquileana’s brilliant post on John Keats https://aquileana.wordpress.com/ that renewed my interest in the sonnet. When I looked up Sonnet on Google, I realised my original version was only a sonnet-like poem: it consisted of three quatrains and a couplet, but the rhyme in the second half of the second quatrain had to be altered and consequently adjusted in the third quatrain; and I paid more attention to metre. Although the language is archaic in some lines, I can call it a Modern Sonnet owing to its peculiar rhyming scheme:  a b a b c c d a d a a d e e.

This is my very first and only sonnet. I hope you like it. ~  Have a nice weekend! ~ Irina 🙂 

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