The Sonnet. William Shakespeare.

The Sonnet. William Shakespeare. Beijing: Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press. 2010. 309pp The Sonnets, written by Shakespeare between about 1590 and 1598, published in 1609, is another peak of Sonnets after Petrarch. The Sonnets can be divided into two parts, the first part is the content before Chapter 126, and it’s dedicated to a Fair Lord, and the poems mainly praise the friend’s beauty and their friendship. And the second part is the content from 127 to the end, dedicated to a Dark Lady, mainly describing love. And his beautiful verses and profound thoughts deeply moved me.       From the literary nature of the sonnets, Shakespeare changed Petrarch's format to make the structure more rigorous. He divided fourteen lines of poetry into two parts, the first part is three four lines, the second part is two lines, and each line has ten syllables. The first part is mainly used to narrate the narrative and express feelings. However, in the second part, Shakespeare summarizes the content concisely and points out the theme. At the same time, the rhyme of the sonnets follows the rule of “abab cdcd efef gg”. Naturally, this kind of format of sonnets is named after him. As for language skills, Shakespeare made it extraordinary. For poets, the more rigorous the structure of the poem, the harder it is to express feelings, but Shakespeare’s sonnets are unpretentious and free-spirited. Just as his play is full of imagination, the language of his poetry is also full of imagination and full of emotions.       Each poem written by Shakespeare has an independent aesthetic value. However, as for the most famous eighteenth poem, it is even more eye-catching. The first two sentences, “Shall I compare thee to a summer's day? Thou art more lovely and more temperate.” Shakespeare directly expressed their feelings, compared youth life to a summer’s day to praise the lovely and temperate lives. The next few sentences use fall-rise pattern. First, it describes the setbacks and regrets in life with images such as wind and hotness. And with a neat twist, “But thy eternal summer shall not fade, Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st, Nor shall death brag thou wand'rest in his shade” The author point out that the beauty of lives wouldn’t fade, though there is lots of discouragement in our lives, just like Eileen Chang said, “Life is a gorgeous robe, covered with lice.” The last two sentences give a summary of the whole poem, people will pass down from generation to generation. And the beauty of youth will be praised by all humans and written in poems to pass on.       However, perhaps due to the influence of the strict structure of Chinese poetry, the rhythm of Shakespeare’s sonnet looks like a little messy. Maybe it’ s hard for me to get this kind of unique beauty.       Shakespeare’s compliments for lives and inheritance can be seen everywhere in his sonnets, and we can get a further understanding of lives among his beautiful verses. Undoubtedly, The Sonnets had successfully achieved Shakespeare’s goal to praise beauty and love. Compared with other kinds of sonnets, Shakespeare’s inherits from Petrarch and influence the following poets, but he created his own structure and expressed his feelings fluently with beautiful words. And it will become a peak of the history of sonnets.