To the speaker of this sonnet, life is merely a journey towards the inevitable end, which is death. In just fourteen lines, the speaker is able to debate a difficult issue, reach a conclusion, and pour much more meaning into his words than what it seems. Because of the speaker¡¯s choice of spe...

Towards the end of the sixteenth century, sonnets were the most popular form of circulating poetry, and thus William Shakespeare (1564-1616) composes his own lengthy sonnet cycle, concentrating only on a handful of themes. With the traditional, or Italian, style dominating the poetic forum, Shakesp...

Sonnet 73 is divided into three quatrains and a couplet. Its rhyme scheme is ABAB CDCD EFEF GG. It is a love sonnet, which also covers ageing, dying and death. The sonnet is written in Iambic Pentameter. Caesura occurs in the 2nd, 4th, 8th and 13th line. These brief pauses in the sonnet contribute...

Sonnet 130 This Shakespeare sonnet talks about the contrasts of the speaker's lover and the beauties of the world. Unfortunately the lover is never on the winning side. The speaker tells us his lover's physical appearance, or lack thereof. His lover's eyes are "nothing like t...

Poetry is a common medium people use to creatively express love, and sonnets, a familiar type of poem, are almost always about love. William Shakespeare's "Sonnet 73" is no exception. Senti-ments of love along with those of against and death are expressed through the use of figurative language. ...

Allegory 1. The representation of abstract ideas or principles by characters, figures, or events in narrative, dramatic, or pictorial form. 2. A story, picture, or play employing such representation. John Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress and Herman Melville's Moby Dick are allegories....

"Metaphysical" love poetry such as John Donne's "The Sun Rising" has certain characteristics and features. The frequent use of colloquial speech stresses the occasional quality of the poems in the sense that they often seem to rise out of a specific occasion, and in some cases, they even seem t...