Of all Shakepeare's works, sonnets seem best to portray this word marriage from past and present. Not only do the words and style of the sonnet show this transition of time, but the era in which it was created was a great transitory time as well.

Gutenberg had invented the printing press over a hundred years previous, but the full benefits of that marvelous invention had just begun to be felt by the time Shakespeare arrived on the literary scene.

Shakepeare's sonnets especially brought those benefits to full fruition. Sonnet 116 is an excellent example of one of the over 125 sonnets he produced. Shakespeare writes of the love struck soul who 'is never shaken' and even to death finds that love 'it is an ever-fixed mark'. He then ends the sonnet by stating with tongue in cheek that there is very little possibility of him being proven wrong in his statements.…...

He spends a great deal of time explaining this to us with imagery and symbolism. Love looks upon "tempests" (6) - the possible hurdles that lovers may encounter - and is "never shaken" (6) by them. It is important to note that the poet does not believe that love is always happy and easy. He is not foolish enough tot think that tough times will come. He knows that love will encounter difficulties but he is confident that it will survive. He also says, love is not "Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks/ithin his bending sickle compass come" (9-10). Here we have more metaphors that help us understand the poet's point-of-view. Many might be under the impression that time will make a mockery of love or it might be construed as a metaphor for death. The second connection makes more sense - especially when we consider how the…...

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Works Cited

Shakespeare, William. "Sonnet 116." Shakespeare for Lovers. New York: Carol Publishing Group. 1995.

Edna St. Vincent Millay's "Love is Not All"
Scansion and Analysis

Edna St. Vincent Millay utilizes a traditional sonnet form in "Love is Not All" that is reminiscent of a Shakespearean sonnet, with an ABAB, CDCD, EFEF, GG rhyme scheme. It also contains a "turn," in that the argument that the poet appears to be making throughout the first half of the poem is suddenly turned in a different and unexpected manner so that the last lines of the poem surprise the reader and lead him to a contradictory or opposite conclusion. In this case, the first part of the sonnet is set to giving negative reasons for what love is not and why it is not so important in practical terms. And yet the poet concludes that in spite of all these practical reasons, love is still, in fact, everything -- that is, it is worth more than all other practical…...

In addition, it is the "star to every wandering bark" (7). In "hy Should a Foolish Marriage Vow," the poet claims that marriage is "foolish" (Dryden 1). He also wonders why two people should honor a vow that was made "long ago" (2). In addition, the poet wonders why two people should remain married "hen passion is decay'd" (4). Here we see two very different points-of-view regarding love. Love may seem strong to the poet in "Sonnet 116" but it far from that in "hy Should a Foolish Marriage Vow." hile the poet in "Sonnet 116" experiences a love that is "never shaken" (Shakespeare 6) and is not "Time's fool" (9), the poet in "hy Should a Foolish Marriage Vow" declares that love and marriage are nothing more than "madness" (Dryden 13). Love is real but love can change.
Sonnet 116" and "hy Should a Foolish Marriage Vow" offers different…...

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Works Cited

Shakespeare, William. "Sonnet 116." Shakespeare for Lovers. New York: Carol Publishing Group. 1995.

Dryden, John. "Why Should a Foolish Marriage Vow." Poets.org. Online.   Accessed March 09, 2008.http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/16824Site 

The rhyme scheme of this sonnet follows Shakespeare's usual structure, wherein the quatrains all have an independent alternating rhyme (ABAB CDCD EFEF), and the final two lines form an heroic couplet (GG). This adds to the feeling of receiving discrete steps of an argument, and enhances the divisions of the versification. There is also a noticeable prevalence of "l's and "s's in the poem, particularly in the first and third quatrains. these sounds make up the basics of the word "lies," which is itself used as a rhyme and is repeated in the poem, and which forms one of the major themes of the sonnet. In this way, the alliteration subconsciously reinforces the meaning and feel of the poem. There are also instances of repeated words, such as "love" in the lines "O love's best habit is in seeming trust, / and age in love, loves not to have..." (lines…...

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Works Cited

De Grazia, Margreta. The Cambridge Companion to Shakespeare. New York: Cambridge University Press 2001.

Evans, G. Blakemore and M. Tobin, eds. The Riverside Shakespeare. New York: Houghton Mifflin, 2003.

Shakespeare, William. "Sonnet 138." In the Riverside Shakespeare.

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Here, though ordsworth has once again assumed his place apart from the natural world, he denotes that it is of value to return to this beautiful space in his memory when he is in need of emotional or psychological respite. And ultimately, this reinforces the romantic imperative of distilling the human experience within its context. For ordsworth, the context of modernity invokes a greater appreciation for man's inextricable bond to the natural world.

For Shakespeare, a pre-romantic prerogative toward leaving one's own stamp on the world seems to drive the perspective of Sonnet 116. So is this evidenced by his closing remarks, which states rather definitively, "If this be error and upon me proved, I never writ, nor no man ever loved." Both with regard to the way that Shakespeare characterizes the everlasting nature of true love and the way that he references his own role in the world as a…...

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Works Cited:

Shakespeare, W. (1609). Sonnet 116. Shakespeare-Online.com.

Wordsworth, W. (1807). I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud. Poem Hunter.

Renaissance Art
An Analysis of Love in the Renaissance Art of Sidney, Shakespeare, Hilliard and Holbein

If the purpose of art, as Aristotle states in the Poetics, is to imitate an action (whether in poetry or in painting), Renaissance art reflects an obsession with a particular action -- specifically, love and its many manifestations, whether eros, agape or philia. Love as a theme in 16th and 17th century poetry and art takes a variety of forms, from the sonnets of Shakespeare and Sidney to the miniature portraits of Hilliard and Holbein. Horace's famous observation, ut picture poesis, "as is poetry so is painting," helps explain the popularity of both. Indeed, as Rensselaer . Lee observes, the "sister arts as they were generally called…differed in means and manner of expression, but were considered almost identical in fundamental nature, in content, and in purpose" (Lee 196). In other words, the love sonnets of…...

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Works Cited

Aristotle. Poetics (trans. By Gerald Else). MI: Ann Arbor Paperbacks, 1970. Print.

Greenblatt, Stephen. Will in the World. NY W.W. Norton, 2004. Print.

Hogan, Patrick. "Sidney and Titian: Painting in the 'Arcadia' and the 'Defence.'" The

South Central Bulletin, vol. 27, no. 4. (Winter, 1967): 9-15. Print.

Art Creation and Analysis
"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"

William Shakespeare, Sonnet 116. etrieved from http://www.shakespeare-online.com/sonnets/116.html

These lines mean to me that love is something that does not change. It is more than a feeling, because feelings come and go. Sometimes we feel something that we call love intensely and other times not at all. Yet what happens when someone needs us, needs our help, needs some empathy or sympathy from us, or just needs a hand -- some time out of our day? Do we give it? That is what love is to me: it is an exercise of the will -- something that starts in the mind but is made real and manifest in the acting. It is constant, as Shakespeare implies with this poem. It does not…...

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References

CHA. (2005). SISTER CAROL KEEHAN, DC, RN, MS. CHA. Retrieved from  https://www.chausa.org/docs/default-source/staff-directory-downloads/keehan-pdf.pdf?sfvrsn=4 

Ellis, R., Grinberg, E. (2016). Georgia Gov. Nathan Deal to Veto 'Religious Liberty'

Bill. CNN. Retrieved from  http://www.cnn.com/2016/03/28/us/georgia-north-carolina-lgbt-bills/

Even physical relationships are prone to dissolution -- as ebster shows: the lovers are murdered one by one. ebster and the other Jacobeans appear to pine for an era of old world spirituality -- for the new modern world, while full of scientific inquiry and triumph (see Bacon), lacks that sensitivity of soul that could effect true and real humility.
3. For, however, a complete and masterful representation of the many facets of human nature in all its strengths and failings, one need look no further than to the works of Shakespeare, which span both Elizabethan and Jacobean eras. For the folly of kingly pride, there is Lear. For the bitterness of ambition on the murdered conscience, there is Macbeth. For the nature of love and the relationship between man and woman there are the marvelous sonnets 116, 129, and 138: all three of which tackle the subject from a…...

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Works Cited

Eliot, T.S. "Whispers of Immortality." American Poems. Web. 27 July 2011.

Elizabeth I. "The Golden Speech." The Norton Anthology of English Literature, Eight

Edition. (M. H. Abrams, ed.) W.W. Norton, 2006.

Shakespeare, William. "Sonnets 116, 129, 138." The Norton Anthology of English

Screwtape and Lear: hat Both Say About Duty and Christian Love
The underlying perspective that both King Lear and The Screwtape Letters share may be called a Christian perspective, in which duty, humility and sacrifice are indirectly valued as the best ideals, though, of course, Screwtape also notes that "duty comes before pleasure" (Lewis 21). hile Cordelia represents Christ in Lear, the ordeals of ormwood's patient resemble the crisis of identity that Lear suffers. The relationship between sanity and goodness is established in both works, and that relationship serves to underscore the main theme which is the greatness of Christian living and the tragedy and violence that results from unchristian living. The texts thus serve to complement one another and both agree on man's place in society (which is that he should subordinate himself to God rather than to Self or appetite or Satanic pride, etc.). So while the material is…...

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Works Cited

White, David Allen. "Shakespeare." MN: St. Thomas Aquinas Seminary, 1996. Print.

Lewis, C.S. The Screwtape Letters. Bartleby. Web. 29 Apr 2015.

Lincoln, Abraham. "First Inaugural Address." Bartleby. Web. 29 Apr 2015.

New Testament. BibleHub. Web. 29 Apr 2015.

Merit: eflection
David Brooks (2015) makes a valid point in his New York Times article "Love and Merit." His aim is to show that parental love is more important and effective than meritocratic love. The difference between the two is that the former is unconditional and gives the child the sense that he or she is loved no matter what -- even if he or she fails at everything the child attempts, the parent still loves the child. Meritocratic love, on the other hand, is based the child's success at various tasks, whether school, sports, or sociality. Meritocratic love, Brooks argues, reinforces the wrong ideas in the child -- namely, that the child is only valuable so long as he performs well. But this notion sets up a false idea within society. It props up a person's sense of self-worth by gauging the person's value according to standards that do…...

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References

Brooks, D. (2015). Love and Merit. The New York Times. Retrieved from  http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/24/opinion/david-brooks-love-and-merit.html?smid=pl-share 

Shakespeare, W. (n.d.). "Sonnet 116." Shakespeare Online. Retrieved from  http://www.shakespeare-online.com/sonnets/116.html

William Shakespeare has written a number of love sonnets. In general, these tend to be less conventional than the typical romantic poem, where love is praised above all things as the purpose of life and relationships. Instead, Shakespeare tends towards a more realistic sense of loving despite imperfection and despite life's challenges. To some degree, the same is true of Sonnet 116, which begins with the line "Let me not to the marriage of true minds/admit impediments. Love is not love…" When read for its deeper meaning, it becomes clear that Shakespeare is not denying the realities of life together for romantic partners; he admits that there will be difficulty. The central point of the poem, however, is contained in these lines, implying that true love is solid and unchanging, regardless of any changes or challenges that might be found in the environment or conditions surrounding it.
In the first…...

He "almost" despises himself but still seems not to think that his actions were absolutely wrong. Furthermore, the narrator of the Shakespeare Sonnet finds solace and comfort in thinking of his lover. By thinking of the one he loves, a human being, the narrator feels absolved of any wrongdoing. The narrator of the Shakespeare Sonnet is more concerned with the consequences of his actions, such as being an outcast, than with whether the action was right or wrong. For Herbert, morality is quite the opposite. Herbert suggests that the human condition is itself a state of sin.
Therefore, a central difference between secular and religious morality as expressed in Elizabethan poetry is between absolute and situational ethics. For Herbert, morality is based on a set of absolute values that God and only God can create. God is the "Just Judge" and God's judgments transcend any human laws (l 12). Moreover,…...

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Works Cited

Herbert, Mary Sidney, Countess of Pembroke. "Psalm 51." Retrieved July 15, 2009 from  http://www.luminarium.org/renlit/psalm51.htm 

Shakespeare, William. "Sonnet 29." Retrieved July 15, 2009 from  http://www.shakespeare-online.com/sonnets/29.html

Like so many of us, he feels that heaven has cursed him. The element of disgrace would mean that he has fallen out of favor with God. He feels that all of his efforts are "bootless" (useless). However, the skylark has risen above this, implying that by remembering his love, he will also rise above it.
This author used the example of heaven because it is universal. We all think about our mortality and want to make sure that our lives have meaning. Without it, we are lost and rudderless. However, like the skylark, love will help us rise above the situation and finally make our way through the troubles of life that we all have.

4) the issue of Jews, Judaism and the character of Shylock are famous and among the most examined aspects of the Merchant of Venice. The raise all sorts of questions about whether or not Shakespeare…...

In our humanity, we tend to feed such emotions, just as the speaker of the poems suns his tree with "smiles" (7). The wrath does not end but feeds on negativity.
"A Poison Tree" is a mental exercise. The scene of this poem is more significant than anything else because it never leaves the speaker's mind. This poem is about murder. However, it is not the kind of murder we might see on CSI. Instead, this murder takes place within the heart of the speaker. In his soul, where he is completely honest, he allows his enemy to consume the deadly fruit, much like Satan did in the Garden of Eden. Here we see the danger of anger. The tone of this poem is somber, which seems odd when coupled with the sing-song rhyme scheme. It wants to read like a nursery rhyme but its content is far too macabre.

"A…...

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Works Cited

Blake, William. "A Poison Tree." The Norton Anthology of English Literature. Vol. II. Abrams,

M.H., Ed. New York W.W. Norton and Company. 1986. Print.