William Shakespeare Sonnet 94 a comparison of 2 critics

             William Shakespeare's sonnets have intrigued scholars and critics for centuries. Not only has Shakespeare deviated from the Petrarchan way of writing a sonnet and created the Shakespearean Sonnet, he also used his sonnets to criticize society and its individuals at the time. An example of such a sonnet would be Sonnet 94 " They that have power to hurt, and will hurt none". Sonnet 94 is one of the most difficult sonnets of the sequence, in terms of the reader understanding of what the speaker is talking about. The sonnet is split in two by two almost unconnected descriptions. In the first part of the sonnet we have a description of people who are in power but who won't become power hungry and take advantage of it and the second part deals with a flower in the summer and how striking is the resemblance between the stench of a rotting lily and the "stench of corruption" when a person in power uses his means for the wrong reasons. In an attempt to explain Sonnet 94 and offer a critique of it, Albert S. Gerard in his article "The Stone as a Lily: A discussion of Shakespeare's Sonnet 94" and Helen Vendler in her book " The Art of Shakespeare's Sonnets", offer extremely specialized and complex views of Sonnet 94, not really criticizing the sonnet as much as its structure and relation to other literary works.
             Albert S. Gerard introduces his article by quoting John Quincey Adams' view on Sonnet 94. Right after, he proceeds to introduce J. W. Lever's view, before taking any time to explain what John Quincey Adams' quote or reasoning for believing Sonnet 94 was about a "friend [which] has fallen into a life of gross sensuality, and the poet finds it necessary to rebuke him in the strongest language" . Albert S. Gerard does not introduce or give any information regarding any of the authors he uses in his essay. He constantly refers back and forth bet...

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William Shakespeare Sonnet 94 a comparison of 2 critics. (1969, December 31). In MegaEssays.com. Retrieved 17:51, March 28, 2024, from https://www.megaessays.com/viewpaper/10452.html