by Shakespeare · Cluster: Unrequited Frustrated Love · Unattainable Beloved · Petrarchan Sonnet
Abstract
Shakespeare’s 154 sonnets. The Fair Youth sequence urges procreation, then immortalizes the beloved’s beauty against time and decay through the poet’s own eternal verse; the later Dark Lady sonnets turn to desire, jealousy and disillusion. Recurrent notes are love and beauty, the ravages of time, appearance versus reality, and art as a defense against mortality.
Testo / Text
Connections
Forms & Genres: Shakespearean Sonnet, Sonnet, Poem Sequence Themes & Concepts: Love Romantic, Beauty, Transience, Appearance vs Reality, Grief and Loss, Jealousy, Procreation, Immortality of Art Fame Motifs: Time, Eyes and Sight, Desire, Death, Letters and Writing, Seasons Topoi: Tempus Fugit, Immortality Through Verse