Shakespeare’s Sonnets: Analysis of the Most Famous

Here is the English text of the sonnet:
Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer’s lease hath all too short a date:
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimm’d;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance, or nature’s changing course, untrimm’d;
But thy eternal summer shall not fade
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st;
Nor shall Death brag thou wander’st in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou grow’st;
So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to you.

Here is the text of the sonnet in Italian:
Should I compare thee to a summer’s day?
Thou art far more radiant and mild:
Wild winds shake the tender buds of May
, and summer’s course is too short.
Sometimes too hot shines the eye of heaven
, and often is his golden face dimmed,
and all beauty with time loses its lustre,
spoiled by chance or the changing course of nature.
But thy eternal summer shall not fade,
nor shalt thou lose possession of thy beauty;
nor shall death boast to cover thee with his shadow,
for thou growest in time into eternal verse.
As long as men breathe and eyes see,
these my verses shall live, and give life to thee.

MOST FAMOUS SHAKESPEARE SONNETS: ANALYSIS OF SONNET 29

Shakespeare’s Sonnet 29 is Coleridge’s favorite. The poem explores the idea that love can make people feel good about themselves and that it can cure all ills. At the beginning of the sonnet, in fact, the poet expresses his state of crisis due to the loss of his reputation and financial failure, which leads him to live as an outcast and to complain, wishing he were more “rich in hope, beauty and friends”, cursing himself and envying others. However, troubled by these considerations, the thought of the young man he loves and of his love make him happy and at peace with himself again. Love makes the poet feel like “the joyous lark”, thus using a clear simile. Other rhetorical figures are personification (Fortuna), metaphor (“at break of day”, i.e. at dawn), hyperbole (“at the threshold of heaven”) and enjambement (“rises/from the dark earth”, “brings with her/such riches”).

Here is the English text of the sonnet:
When, in disgrace with fortune and men’s eyes,
I all alone beweep my outcast state,
And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries,
And look upon myself, and curse my fate,
Wishing me like to one more rich in hope,
Featur’d like him, like him with friends possess’d,
Desiring this man’s art and that man’s scope,
With what I most enjoy contented least;
Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising,
Haply I think on thee, and then my state,
Like to the lark at break of day arising
From sullen earth, sings hymns at heaven’s gate;
For thy sweet love remember’d such wealth brings
That then I scorn to change my state with kings.

Here is the Italian text of the sonnet:
Sometimes, having become hated by Fortune and men,
I cry alone over my sad abandonment,
and I trouble the deaf sky with my human cries,
and I contemplate myself, and curse fate,

longing to be like him, richer in hopes,
more beautiful in appearance, with numerous friends,
envying the genius of this one, the power of another,
of that which is most dissatisfied with me;

but behold, in these thoughts, almost scorning myself,
your image appears, and then I change state,
and like a lark, at the break of day, it rises
from the dark earth, and sings hymns to the threshold of heaven:

for the memory of your sweet love brings with it
such riches, that I would not exchange them for a kingdom.

MOST FAMOUS SHAKESPEARE SONNETS: ANALYSIS OF SONNET 116

Among the most famous Sonnets, we cannot miss number 116, dedicated to the celebration of romantic love, understood as ideal and true love. This sonnet is also dedicated to the young man, and Shakespeare expresses the strength and characteristics of sincere and lasting love, which is not fickle and does not change despite changes and resists the passage of time. Although man is not able to fully understand the meaning and value of love, he can still understand how strong and lasting it is. Finally, Shakespeare states that if he were to be wrong about the perfect nature of love, then he should deny everything he had written up to that point on this subject and that, at the same time, if such love does not exist, it means that no man has ever loved in the profound sense he described. The text contains metaphors, personifications, symbols and metonymies. For an in-depth analysis of this commentary, read: Shakespeare’s Sonnet 116, analysis and rhetorical figures

Here is Shakespeare’s sonnet 116 in English:
Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O no! it is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on storms and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth’s unknown, although his height be taken.
Love’s not Time’s fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle’s compass come;
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error and proved upon me,
I never wrote, nor no man ever loved.

Here is the Italian text of the sonnet:
Let me not impede
the union of faithful souls; Love is not Love
that changes when it finds a change,
or tends to fade when another departs.
Oh no! Love is a beacon ever fixed,
That outshines the storm and never wavers;
It is the guiding star of every lost bark,
Whose worth is unknown, though the distance be known.
Love is not subject to Time, though rosy lips and cheeks
must fall beneath his curved blade;
Love changes not in a few hours or weeks,
But fearlessly endures the last day of judgment.
If this be error and be proved to me,
I never wrote, nor any man ever loved.
MOST FAMOUS SHAKESPEARE SONNETS: ANALYSIS OF SONNET 130

Sonnet 130 stands out from the others: in this case the protagonist of the sonnet is the beloved woman (and no longer the young friend) and, instead of praising the perfection of the beloved, Shakespeare begins by describing all the defects of his better half. The aim is to contrast the romantic ideal of the Angel Woman : the woman described by the poet is not “like the sun”, she does not have coral-colored lips, her breasts are gray and not white as snow, just as her hair is raven and her cheeks are not like two roses. Her voice is not beautiful and she is not a goddess. However, despite these defects, the poet says he truly loves her, much more than any other author could do with a woman of Petrarchan imagination or Dantean memory: a real woman is better even if not perfect, Shakespeare seems to tell us, than an ideal woman who does not exist. For this reason, even though the Bard takes the sonnets of Francesco Petrarca as a model, he criticizes the representation of the woman solely as an angel woman.

Here is the English text of the sonnet:

My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun;
Coral is far more red than her lips’ red;
If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;
If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.
I have seen roses damask’d, red and white,
But no such roses see I in her cheeks;
And in some perfumes there is more delight
Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.
I love to hear her speak, yet well I know
That music has a far more pleasing sound;
I grant I never saw a goddess go;
My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground:
And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare
As any she believed with false compare.

Here is the Italian text of the sonnet:
My lady’s eyes are not like the sun;
coral is far redder than her lips’ red;
if snow be white, then her breasts are grey;
if hair be horsehair, black horsehair grows on her head.
I have seen variegated roses, red and white,
but I see no such roses on her cheeks;
and in some perfumes there is more delight than in the breath that my lady exhales.
I love to hear her speak, yet I know
that music has a far more pleasing sound.
I own I have never seen a goddess walk,
but my lady walks and treads the earth.
Yet, by heaven, I think my beloved is as extraordinary
as any other woman falsely sung with exaggerated images.