Compare and Contrast First Draft
"Victims of Love: Shakespeare’s Sonnet 147 and A&S 20”
Within Shakespeare’s Sonnet 147 there is a tone of helplessness toward the main theme of love. This helplessness is displayed within the first lines of the beginning quatrain when the speaker utilizes the simile: “My love is as a fever…” (1186) to depict his impression that love is nothing but an illness to which he has no escape or cure. The sense that the speaker’s love is an incurable disease continues within quatrain two, with the statement that the poet’s “reason, the physician to [his] love…/hath left [him]…” which can allude to the vulnerability he feels now that his only savior, “reason,” has abandoned him. The ending of the second quatrain can also be connected back to the first quatrain and the feeling of defenselessness toward love with the statement: “Desire is death…” which is separated with caesura from the statement “…which physic did except”. According to the OED, the word “physic” means “a medicinal substance” used to remedy an illness; which, when added to the word “except,” this statement seems to portray that the poet is sick from the love he feels and that desire is an added symptom to the disease. The tone of the couplet drastically changes from helplessness to maliciousness with the first use of the pronoun “thee.” The speaker states “… and [I] thought thee bright…” which, with the definition of “bright” meaning “transparent,” suggests that he thinks highly of the person he is in love with. This sense of endearment is quickly contradicted with the last line of the couplet being: “[thee] as black as hell, as dark as night” adding to the vengeful attitude the speaker has towards the “thee” for not being as transparent as he once thought and being a symptom to his illness of love.
Sidney’s sonnet 20 takes on another approach to the theme of love. The speaker seems to take on a tone of hatred and anger toward the subject of the poem, which is suggested to be the love deity, Cupid, due to the speaker being shot with a “dart” which causes his love (1088). This sense of hatred is first alluded to within the diction of the first two quatrains when the speaker incorporates phrases like: “murth’ring boy,” “like a thief,” and “tyran,” to describe Cupid. Due to Cupid being an epitome of love, it would seem that these phrases not only suggest that the speaker is upset with Cupid for making him fall in love, but also that Cupid has victimized him into feeling this unwanted love. The poet falling prey to love is first alluded to within the last line of the first quatrain with the phrase “wrongful prey,” which emits a sense that Cupid is a “murth’ring” predator and that the speaker is defenseless against the power of love. The image of the speaker being a victim is again mentioned in the first line of the last quatrain with the phrase “Poor passenger…” (1088). This phrase suggests again that the speaker was not prepared for the power of Cupid’s “dart” and how its “death-wound” has left him blinded with love for who the reader can assume is Stella. Unlike the speaker’s hatred and negativity towards the god of love and love itself, the author turns to a more dramatic and urgent tone when addressing his audience of the poem, which is stated to be “…[his] friends…” (1088). Urgency and dramatics is first depicted within the very first line of the sonnet with the statement: “Fly, fly, my friend…”. The statement seems to suggest that the poet knows he has been struck with Cupid’s arrow, resulting in his “death-wound” and does not want his friend to meet the same fate of being blinded with love.
Through the diction of both Sonnets, there seems to be a suggestion that love is something that is unwanted. The speaker in Shakespeare’s Sonnet depicts it as being a “fever” with no cure, while Sidney’s speaker thinks of himself as the “wrongful prey” of Cupid’s dart and of love. Both speakers seem to think that love and desire are emotions that will end in their demise with statements like: “…death-wound…” and “Past cure…”. The major contrast of the Sonnets is to whom the speaker blames for the love sickness. Shakespeare’s speaker accuses the “black as hell” thee, while Sidney’s speaker faults the “murth’ring boy” for his demise due to love.
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"Victims of Love: Shakespeare’s Sonnet 147 and A&S 20”
Reason: This title is a great start to your essay. It grabs the reader's attention from the very beginning.
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I know this is a rough draft and that writing introductions are hard, but like we discussed in class introductions are the best way to gain the readers’ attention. When you have finished your intro. please post it so I can critique it!
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This analysis is a great way to start your essay and shows a great use of direct quotes!
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This sentence is great way to introduce Sidney’s Sonnet, but you need to add how he supposedly takes on “another approach to the theme of love.”
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This closing sentence is great because it ties into and concludes what you were saying throughout this whole paragraph.
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While this paragraph is great, you need to expand more on how these sonnets compare and contrast. The outcome of this assignment is to be able to read and comprehend poems, which you have done very well in your supporting paragraphs. But, you need to spend some more time analyzing the comparisons between the two sonnets. Great work so far, but keep expanding!
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