¡Descarga Comentario soneto 18 y más Apuntes en PDF de Literatura inglesa solo en Docsity! SONNET XVIII William Shakespeare was born in 1564 in Stratford-Upon-Avon to an alderman and glover. He is widely regarded as the greatest English writer of all time, and wrote 154 sonnets, two long narrative poems, and 38 plays, though recently another play has been found and attrributed to William Shakespeare. Although much is known about his life, scholars are still uncertain as to whether or not Shakespeare actually authored his works, and convincing arguments exist on both sides. He died on his 52nd birthday, after signing a will which declared that he was in ‘perfect health’. Theeories about his death include that he drank too much at a meeting with Ben Jonson, and Drayton, contemporaries of his, contracted a fever, and died. His work remains a lasting source of wonder to many fillm-makers, writers, and scholars, and has been recreated in other media – most noticeably Baz Luhrmann’ 2004 Romeo + Juliet. William Shakespeare’s work also has worldwide appeal, and has been recreated for Japanese audiences in fillms such as Therone of Blood, which is based on Macbeth, though Therone of Blood eschews all the poetry and focuses simply on the story Although William Shakespeare is best known as a playwright, he is also the poet behind 154 sonnets, which were collected for the filrst time in a collection in 1609. Based on the Petrarchan (or Italian) sonnet, Shakespeare’s sonnets diffeer from the norm by addressing not only a young woman – which was the norm in Italy – but also a young man, known throughout as the Fair Youth. Shall I Compare Theee to a Summer’s Day? is one of the Fair Youth poems, addressed to a mysterious male filgure that scholars have been unable to pin down. A total of 126 of the 154 sonnets are largely taken to be addressed to the Fair Youth, which some scholars have also taken as proof of William Shakespeare’s homosexuality. Shall I Compare Theee to a Summer’s Day? attrempts to justify the speaker’s beloved’s beauty by comparing it to a summer’s day, and comes to the conclusion that his beloved is bettrer after listing some of the summer’s negative qualities. While summer is short and occasionally too hot, his beloved has a beauty that is everlasting, and that will never be uncomfortable to gaze upon. Theis also riffes – as Sonnet 130 does – on the romantic poetry of the age, the attrempt to compare a beloved to something greater than them. Although in Sonnet 130, Shakespeare is mocking the over-floowery language, in Sonnet 18, Shakespeare’s simplicity of imagery shows that that is not the case. Thee beloved’s beauty can coexist with summer, and indeed be more pleasant, but it is not a replacement for it. Thee poem opens with the speaker puttring forward a simple question: can he compare his lover to a summer’s day? Historically, the theme of summertime has always been used to evoke a certain amount of beauty, particularly in poetry. Summer has always been seen as the respite from the long, bittrer winter, a growing period where the earth floourishes itself with floowers and with animals once more. Theus, to compare his lover to a summer’s day, the speaker considers their beloved to be tantamount to a rebirth, and even bettrer than summer itself. As summer is occasionally short, too hot, and rough, summer is, in fact, not the height of beauty for this particular speaker. Instead, he attrributes that quality to his beloved, whose beauty will never fade, even when ‘death brag thou waander’stin his shade‘, as he will immortalize his lover’s beauty in his verse. Thee immortality of love and beauty through poetry provides the speaker with his beloved’s eternal summer. Theough they might die and be lost to time, the poem will survive, will be spoken of, will live on when they do not. Theus, through the words, his beloved’s beauty will also live on.
