Love and death in Shakespeare's sonnets

Résumé du document

In 1609 Thomas Thorpe published, a collection of 154 sonnets written by William Shakespeare under the title SHAKESPEARE'S SONNETS. Most of these poems were probably written in 1597 though the earliest ones could have been composed as early as 1593. Sonnets cycles were a traditional genre of the time, in England sir Philip Sidney preceded Shakespeare with his Elizabethan sonnets cycle. The form of the sonnet itself was one of the central conventions of poetry. Though the Shakespearean sonnet appears slightly different from the more traditional "Italian sonnet? used, for instance, by the French Pléaide. Shakespeare chose to build his sonnet, following Sidney, of three quatrains and a final couplet, being a pointe. If the shape and structure of this collection insert it in various literary traditions of the Time, its themes also correspond to certain standards of the Renaissance. Indeed, the cycle is haunted by the topoï of Love and Death, topoï of which the late XVIth century and early XVIIth provide a profusion of illustrations.

Extraits

[...] Resignation we can notice in the sonnets 71 and 72. In these sonnets the poet expresses the desire of his complete disappearance: name be buried where my body (l.11; LXXII) This wish is clearly countered by the immortality Shakespeare attributes to his own verse in other poems. Immortality once again unwanted in the sonnet 66: “Tired with all these, for restful death I LXVI) But it is precisely the ambiguous feeling towards Death, sometimes wished, sometimes feared, sometimes accepted that bring Shakespeare to draw a intelligent portrait of Death. [...]

[...] Shakespeare's sonnets were written at a time when coherence gone” men worried about an order that seemed to escape from their control. The traditional representations were then useless to understand the complexity of Life and the World. Through Shakespeare's reworking of the literary conventions, it is the whole evolution of the cosmogony of the period that is put forward. The topoï of Love and Death are extracted by the poet from their commonplace treatment to appear as bare concepts. And their complexity unveiled finally brings him to elaborate his “poetical strategy”. [...]

[...] Love and death in Shakespeare's sonnets I. The treatment of Love and Death in the sonnets : reworking the literary conventions 1. The traditions of Death in art 2. Traces of Petrarchanism 3. Reworking of the topoï I. Desacralisation of the topoï; the new faces of Love and Death 1. The complexity of Love 2. Modern aesthetic canons and schemes of Love 3. Eros and Thanatos I. [...]

[...] But in Shakespearean poetry, the vanity affords a new idea; riches and glory are despicable when compared to love. The sonnets 25 and 29 set examples: at a frown they in their glory die.” (l. XXV) thy sweet love remembered such wealth brings That then I scorn to change my state with kings” (l.13-14; XXIX) The first seventeen sonnets are generally referred to as the Procreation sonnets. In them, the poet urges the “Fair Youth”to have children for: “Against this coming end should prepare And [his] sweet semblance to other give” (l.3-4 ; XIII) Because: . [...]

[...] Shakespeare's “poetical strategy” 1. Metapoetical elements in the poems 2. The “poetical strategy” In 1609 Thomas Thorpe published, under the title SHAKE-SPEARE'S SONNETS , a collection of 154 sonnets written by William Shakespeare. Most of these poems were probably written in 1597 though the earliest ones could have been composed as early as 1593. Sonnets cycles were a traditional genre of the time, in England sir Philip Sidney preceded Shakespeare with his Elizabethan sonnets cycle. The form of the sonnet itself was one of the central conventions of poetry. [...]