Ficha técnica: Título: William Shakespeare. Da leitura à apreciação Trabalho elaborado no âmbito da disciplina de Inglês, sob a orientação da professora Ana Costa e Silva Alunos: 12.º AV, 12.º LH1 e 12.º LH2 Desenho gráfico: Isabel Bernardo Edição: Biblioteca Escolar Clara Póvoa Agrupamento de Escolas Lima-de-Faria, Cantanhede, 2017
This work, prepared in group, had as main objective to make students read William Shakespeare's sonnets, analyse their English, comparing it to Modern English, and their content.
Ana Costa e Silva
Este trabalho, realizado em grupo, teve como objetivo sensibilizar
os alunos para a leitura da obra poética de William Shakespeare, analisar o Inglês usado, comparando-o com o Inglês Moderno, e analisar o conteúdo.
Ana Costa e Silva
Shakespeare begins his sonnet by introducing four of his most important themes — immortality, time, procreation, and selfishness. The first four lines relate all of these important themes. Line 1 concerns procreation, especially in the phrase "we desire increase"; line 2 hints at immortality in the phrase "might never die"; line 3 presents the theme of time's unceasing progress; and line 4 combines all three concerns. A "tender heir" represents immortality for parents, who will grow old and die. Apparently the poet has been rejected by the young man, whom the poet addresses as "thou". The poet makes clear that the youth's self-love is unhealthy, not only for himself but for the entire world. The "bud" in line 11 recalls the "rose" from line 2: the rose as an image of perfection underlines the immaturity of the young man, who is only a bud, still imperfect because he has not fully bloomed. The last two lines support the injustice of the youth not sharing his beauty with the world. The poet implies that the youth, instead of marrying a woman and having children, is selfishly wasting his love all for himself.
SONNET I From fairest creatures we desire increase, That thereby beauty's rose might never die,
But as the riper should by time decease, His tender heir might bear his memory: But thou, contracted to thine own bright eyes, Feed'st thy light's flame with self-substantial fuel, Making a famine where abundance lies, Thyself thy foe, to thy sweet self too cruel. Thou that art now the world's fresh ornament And only herald to the gaudy spring, Within thine own bud buriest thy content And, tender churl, makest waste in niggarding. Pity the world, or else this glutton be,
To eat the world's due, by the grave and thee.
The theme of the necessity of procreation could be found in this sonnet.
The poem talks about a young, beautiful and desirable woman. The poet is trying to convince the woman to procreate using the arguments that her beauty won’t last forever; however, if she had a son, her qualities and beauty would pass to him and would immortalize the youth's beauty. With a kid, later in her life, when she will be no longer beautiful, she will have something to be proud of.
Sonnet II When forty winters shall beseige thy brow, And dig deep trenches in thy beauty's field,
Thy youth's proud livery, so gazed on now, Will be a tatter'd weed, of small worth held: Then being ask'd where all thy beauty lies, Where all the treasure of thy lusty days, To say, within thine own deep-sunken eyes, Were an all-eating shame and thriftless praise. How much more praise deserved thy beauty's use, If thou couldst answer 'This fair child of mine Shall sum my count and make my old excuse,' Proving his beauty by succession thine! This were to be new made when thou art old,
And see thy blood warm when thou feel'st it cold
In this sonnet William Shakespeare states that, unlike summer that changes to another season and loses its qualities shortly, his unknown addressee will never lose the beauty and youth that he/she possesses and he/she will eternally be in his verses becoming immortal.
Sonnet XVIII Shall I compare thee to a summer's day? Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May, And summer's lease hath all too short a date: Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines, And often is his gold complexion dimm'd; And every fair from fair sometime declines, By chance, or nature's changing course, untrimm'd; But thy eternal summer shall not fade Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st; Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st in his shade, When in eternal lines to time thou grow'st; So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.
In Sonnet 55, Shakespeare appears insecure about his relationships and his own selfworth.
Here we find an impassioned burst of confidence as the poet claims to have the power to keep his friend's memory alive evermore. However, many believe that such an analysis ignores Shakespeare's paramount desire to immortalize his friend in verse, and not himself. The Romans say: “Because of my poem I will never die.” Shakespeare says: “Because of my poem you will never die....” What distinguishes Shakespeare is that he values the identity of the beloved; he recognizes that the beloved has his own personal immortality, in no way dependent on poetry.
Sonnet LV Not marble, nor the gilded monuments Of princes, shall outlive this powerful rhyme;
But you shall shine more bright in these contents Than unswept stone, besmear'd with sluttish time. When wasteful war shall statues overturn, And broils root out the work of masonry, Nor Mars his sword nor war's quick fire shall burn The living record of your memory. 'Gainst death and all-oblivious enmity Shall you pace forth; your praise shall still find room Even in the eyes of all posterity That wear this world out to the ending doom. So, till the judgment that yourself arise,
You live in this, and dwell in lovers' eyes.
The poet, at the moment, identified himself with the autumn, which is a season known for the fall of leaves, being the yellow ones the latest. The poet feels he has a short time to live and feels hopeless.
The little light will disappear with the sunset and the arrival of the black night refers to the end of his life. He will soon die and he'll never see the young man again. The poet's love for the youth intensifies.
Sonnet LXXIII That time of year thou may'st in me behold When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang
Upon those boughs which shake against the cold, Bare ruin'd choirs, where late the sweet birds sang. In me thou see'st the twilight of such day, As after sunset fadeth in the west, Which by-and-by black night doth take away, Death's second self, that seals up all in rest. In me thou see'st the glowing of such fire That on the ashes of his youth doth lie, As the death-bed whereon it must expire Consum'd with that which it was nourish'd by. This thou perceivest, which makes thy love more strong,
To love that well which thou must leave ere long.
This poem is about love. The poet’s love is constant and will never end. It will survive to any problem that may appear. Although we can try to measure it, we won´t be able to understand it completely. Love doesn´t change with time. The poet thinks that if he is wrong about love, nobody has ever loved.
Sonnet CXVI Let me not to the marriage of true minds Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds, Or bends with the remover to remove. O no! it is an ever-fixed mark That looks on tempests and is never shaken; It is the star to every wand'ring bark, Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken. Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks Within his bending sickle's compass come; Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks, But bears it out even to the edge of doom. If this be error and upon me prov'd,
I never writ, nor no man ever lov'd.
Agrupamento de Escolas Lima-de-Faria, Cantanhede