Summary Sonnet 67 continues the thought of the previous sonnet, and develops a new argument in its reflection upon the poet’s contemporary age. Although the poet still professes faith in the youth’s natural endowments, he is put out of sorts by the public rage for artificial beauty in life and […]
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Summary Were it not that dying would take him from his love, the angry speaker of this litany of life’s disappointments would die. Everywhere he sees the undeserving win public esteem — “And gilded honor shamefully misplaced” — while the virtuous and needy are neglected, or even worse, disgraced. However, […]
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Summary Continuing many of the images from Sonnet 64, the poet concludes that nothing withstands time’s ravages. The hardest metals and stones, the vast earth and sea — all submit to time “Since brass, nor stone, nor earth, nor boundless sea, / But sad mortality o’er-sways their power.” “O fearful […]
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Summary In Sonnet 64, the poet is portrayed as a historian, philosopher, and antiquarian who dreams of time’s relentless destruction of ancient glories. Monuments that reflect the noblest ideas of humankind — castles, churches, and cities — will one day be “confounded to decay.” Sonnet 64 is remarkably similar to […]
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Summary References to the young man’s future are signs of the poet’s fear that love cannot defend against time. The youth could die — “When hours have drained his blood” — and so could his beauty — “And all those beauties whereof now he’s king / Are vanishing, or vanished […]
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Summary The poet thinks of himself as a young man and condemns his own narcissistic vanity. Unfortunately, although he can intellectualize narcissism as an unworthy attribute, nonetheless “It is so grounded inward in my heart.” This youthful image of himself is abruptly shattered in lines 9 through 12, beginning with […]
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Summary The youth continues to present a variety of phantom images to the poet. Trying to settle on one authentic image, the poet cannot sleep because of the emotional turmoil caused by his obsession with the youth. Shapes and visions of the youth are the disembodied “shadows like to thee” […]
Read more Summary and Analysis Sonnet 61Summary and Analysis Sonnet 60
Summary Sonnet 60 is acknowledged as one of Shakespeare’s greatest because it deals with the universal concerns of time and its passing. In the sonnet, time is symbolized by concrete images. For example, the opening two lines present a simile in which time is represented by “waves” and “minutes”: “Like […]
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Summary Sonnet 59 dwells on the paradox that what is new is always expressed in terms of what is already known. The elements of any invention or creative composition must be common knowledge, or old news. The phrase “laboring for invention” indicates not only the poet’s determination to create something […]
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Summary As in so many other sonnets, the poet’s annoyance with the young man is expressed ambiguously. We hardly notice that he rebukes the youth in the lines “That god forbid that made me first your slave / I should in thought control your times of pleasure.” Surely the suggestion […]
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