Sonnets 18 and 130: Defending and Defying the Petrarchan Convention Es

praises 18 and one hundred thirty Defending and Defying the Petrarchan Convention During the Renaissance, it was common for poets to employ Petrarchan conceit to praise their lovers. Applying this graphic symbol of metaphor, an author makes elaborate comparisons of his beloved to one or more rattling dissimilar things. Such hyperbole was often used to idolize a mistress while lamenting her cruelty. Shakespeare, in Sonnet 18, conforms somewhat to this tradition of love poetry, but later breaks out of the mold entirely, writing his distinctly anti-Petrarchan work, Sonnet 130. In Sonnet 18, Shakespeare employs a Petrarchan conceit to immortalize his beloved. He initiates the extended metaphor in the original line of the sonnet by posing the rhetorical question, Shall I compare thee to a summers day? The first two quatrains of the poem are composed of his criticism of summer. Compared to summer, his lover is more lovely and more temperate (2). He argues that the wind impairs t he beauty of summer, and summer is too brief (3-4). The splendor of summer is affected by the enthusiasm of the sunlight, and, as the seasons change, summer becomes less beautiful (5-8). Due to all of these shortcomings of summer, Shakespeare contends in the third quatrain of this sonnet that comparing his lover to this season fails to do her justice. dapple often is gold summers complexion dimmed, her eternal summer shall not happen (6, 9). She, unlike summer, give never deteriorate. He further asserts that his beloved will neither become less beautiful, nor even die, because she is immortalized through his poetry. The sonnet is cerebrate with the couplet, So long as men can breathe, or look can see, / So long live this, and this gives life to thee (13-14). T... ... 1999. Available HTTP library.utoronto.ca. Shakespeare, William. Sonnet 18. The Norton Anthology of English Literature, Vol. 1. M. H. Abrams, ed. W. W. Norton (New York) 1993. ---. Sonnet 130. The Norton Anthol ogy of English Literature, Vol. 1. M. H. Abrams, ed. W. W. Norton (New York) 1993. Sidney, Philip. Astrophel and Stella. Online. Renascence Editions. U of Oregon P. 6 Apr. 1999. Available HTTP darkwing.uoregon.edu. Spenser, Edmund. Amoretti 18. Online. Sonnet Central. Available HTTP www.sonnets.org. Wootton, John. Untitled. Online. Sonnet Central. Available HTTP www.sonnets.org. Wyatt, Sir Thomas. Avising The Bright Beams of These average Eyes. British Library Egerton MS. 2711, fol. 22, ed. Richard Harrier. Canon, 1975 125-26. Online. U of Toronto Lib. Internet. 6 April 1998. Available HTTP library.utoronto.ca.