Antiquity: Poem Assessment Answers

Choose two sonnets from the textbook. Ideally, these two should focus on interpersonal relationships. Compare and contrast how each sonnet discusses an individual's obligation to love or desire an other. In other words, what do these two sonnets say about how love and desire should be enacted?

The antiquity of the poetic form had been refined by the representation of the two most significant poets, Petrarch and Shakespeare through “sonnets”. The consolidation of technicality is vastly articulated by expressing lyrically the theme of love by their most preserved poems, cherishing “love”. While, Francesco Petrarch had experimented with the traditional sonnet structure to define it into a more constructive form, consisting of octave and sestave, William Shakespeare used the structure of his “Sonnet” in a more conventionalized form to celebrate his love poetry, by employing three quatrains and one couplet (Davis, 2002). I have ensured two most commemorated poems: Petrarch's Sonnet 140 and Sonnet 130 of Shakespeare, to point out the contrasting features of desiring love in uncomely terms. Petrarch’s poetry is mostly dedicated to “courtly love” to idolize the love and hope of his life called Laura. Unlike Petrarch, Shakespeare has designed his sonnets into two lovers: fair youth and dark lady.

The two entitled poems of the two poets have different visions of love. In Petrarch sonnet no 140, he has adored his beloved in his imagination which is platonic and based, truly on contemplation from a distantance. The following literal prose:

Amor, che nel penser mio vive e regna

 E 'l suo seggio maggior nel mio cor tene

Has a significant connotation that love has its own terms to reign in the heart of a lover. Here the lover has modest thoughts even after losing his lady, forever. As she teaches him to be strong and self-effacing under any unfavorable circumstances, the lover restrains his evil desires to keep every promise he made. The principle of love is highlighted in a dignified way and every “burning hope” is disdained by the lover himself (Edwards, 2015). According to his belief, a love can be eulogized, if a lover accepts every possible condition of love, in an affirmative approach. He cannot survive the battle of love, if his lady love abandoned him for the sake of being afraid. He can only wish to be strong to accept the lamentation which covers his heart for the rest of his life. To many researchers, Petrarch’s way of love is untainted and defines love which is invented for the sake of his beloved Laura (Forti and Bermann, 1991).

In a unique contrast to Petrarch, Shakespeare has expressed “reciprocal love” form, for both the lovers in love. Basically, sonnet 130 is a conventional love sonnet which has eternalized the beauty of the lover by establishing many facts of comparison to other beauties. For example,

My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun;

Coral is far more red than her lips’ red;

Here the eyes, lips, cheeks and even forehead and breasts of the lover is memorialized to ‘sun’, ‘coral’, ‘dun-colored’, ‘white snow’ and ‘black wires’. The lover is astonished with the beauty of his lover and compares her with goddess, as he cannot be more pleased than before. Every stated comparison has been invoked to establish the described beauty of his mistress (Hedley and Roche, 1990). The early editor believes that the sonnet represents, simply the face value of the mistress over love of the lover. As the poem, actually compliments the qualities of the lover and physicality: this is highly expressed to give an erotized form to exhibit love in a youthful stage.

 It is remarkably true, that Shakespeare has neither used ‘allusion’ nor ‘grandiose metaphor’ to evoke ordinary humanly beauty. His theme is typical “love poetry” which has all the elements to mock traditional Petrarchan sonnet (Ribes, 2012). Thus, Shakespeare has ensured every technique to portray his way of parody of the Petrarch’s famous sonnet. The poet had idolized his love “Laura” in series of extraordinary metaphors which was beyond human expectations and not accepted in Shakespeare’s time. But Shakespeare has embraced one popular theme called consuming love which is highly celebrated in Petrarchan sonnet. In many ways, the sonnets of Shakespeare have reversed the conventions of love which was the fundamental theme of the Petrarchan love sequence. He has denied the traditional form to express the beauty of the mistress and focus on the intentions which invoke love. It is interesting to note that the literary figure known as dark lady of Shakespeare is inspired from the Petrarchan sole lover, Laura (Trueman, 1974). The sonnet of Petrarch is focused to established love to single lover with a heart as pure as gold but obviously, has some touch of eroticized expressions to give volume to that expressed love. Shakespeare on the other hand, has reciprocated love from many and to cherish the beauty of the youth, created to eternize.

References

Davis, D. (2002). A Petrarchan Sonnet. The Yale Review, 90(3), 45-45. doi:10.1111/0044-0124.00629

Edwards, R. (2015). Petrarchan Narratives: Representation and Hermeneutics. MLN, 130(1), 1-23. doi:10.1353/mln.2015.0004

Forti-Lewis, A., & Bermann, S. (1991). The Sonnet over Time: A Study in the Sonnets of Petrarch, Shakespeare, and Baudelaire. Italica, 68(2), 220. doi:10.2307/479856

Hedley, J., & Roche, T. (1990). Petrarch and the English Sonnet Sequences. Renaissance Quarterly, 43(3), 638. doi:10.2307/2862584

Ribes, P. (2012). Teaching Petrarchan and Anti-Petrarchan Discourses in Early Modern English Lyrics. IJHE, 1(1). doi:10.5430/ijhe.v1n1p62

Trueman, A. (1974). Sonnet 130 and the Aeneid. Shakespeare Quarterly, 25(1), 129. doi:10.2307/2868892