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Example research essay topic: William Shakespeare Turning Point - 1,578 words

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Thesis The tide imagery is carried right on through the William Shakespeare's sonnet 60. The idea of the sonnet, the turning point will be considered in this paper. Review of the sonnet with introduction to the turning point of the poem. The authors approach to revealing of the idea.

The symbolic role of key words. The turning point. The contrast of the final lines to the rest of the sonnet. The means of emphasizing the contrast of themes before and after the turning point.

The sonnets structure. Shakespearian Sonnet. Tradition sonnets scheme. The sixth sonnet by William Shakespeare is written with a young man in mind, to whom Shakespeare addressed many of his sonnets. The author uses ample variety of tropes to portray the universal theme of immortality. The main idea of sonnet sixty by William Shakespeare is the irreversible ageing.

Time passes by, people, who once were young and innocent, become mature and wise, then old, and at the end they die and disappear from the Earth. But after them remain their art, or, in broader sense, all the things they created, that are not affected by time and age. They would survive and always remind further generations about their short existence. The fists phrase of the sonnet contains simile, the comparison of minutes to waves.

The word scythe symbolizes death. For many centuries people tried to find means to live forever. Many generations of philosophers considered, that people eternally lived in their creations. The main idea of this sonnet it human immortality, that any person can accomplish through art or work. The words time, minutes and scythe are the key word in this sonnet. They contain its whole idea and philosophy.

The word time is the frame to the whole sonnet and is repeated in every verse. For this purpose besides the word time itself are also used various metaphors and allegories. The word minutes, nativity and maturity are the metaphors, and their meanings already contain various time intervals, which are amplified by additional emotional connotation. The additional allegories that symbolize time, such as waves make towards the pebbled shore, in sequent toil all forwards do contend, delves the parallels in beauty's brow, nothing stands but for his scythe to mow and his cruel hand underline the whole expressive frame of the sonnet and add emotional influence. The segmental structure of the sonnet and the repetitive friction of the first two lines come to the fore and make the lines rhythmically organized in a smooth manner.

It forms the monotony, creates the emotional aspect and the elegiac note. The first phrase of the sonnet pictures the persons life as the symbolic sequence of minutes that remind sea waves, as they hurry to zenith, then begin to shrink more quickly than they grew, then crash into the shore in their monotony, and finally they just hurry away from it. And the minutes also just as hurriedly one by one run away out of reach. The authors choice of word minutes highlights how short the life is. The author uses the words "toil" and describes the shore as pebbled to imply that life is usually hard. Pebbled shore is hard to land on and it hurts.

And the same with the life: it usually hurt painfully and unexpectedly. The first four lines are an introduction to the central part of the poem where the poet is more unreserved and is grieving at the loss of youth, beauty and life without restraint. The second phrase pictures all phases and important moments of life: birth, nativity, or childhood and youth. The third line of the sonnet complements the idea presented in the first phrase.

The author focuses the maturity. The choice of word indicates, that time slow until maturity comes. When nativity has struggled (crawled) to maturity and has been "crowned" at last, time attacks and begins to destroy the youth with which it once favored a person. Time takes away the youth, which it brought, and a person is not even able to delight in it enough. But since then it hurries to the end. The symbol of time" is first introduced into the poem with the "crooked eclipses" that fight with the glory of nativity.

The seventh line emphasizes the words Crooked. Eclipses are darkening forces and "crooked" can mean either askew or dishonest or sinister. It sets a foreboding scene as the time comes into focus. The destiny is already known and it is against the person.

Here the author emphasizes the word time, sets up the image of time as an enemy. Time is the irresistible force, which grinds the youth and innocence. Life is under the attack of time, because though once it used to be a friend, when maturity comes, time becomes an enemy. "And Time that gave doth now his gift confound." In English of the sixteenth century the word "confounded" had the meaning "defeated." In the last phrase time becomes synonymous with death, it destroys all the beauty and takes the life itself. The words used by the author in the first, second, and third lines of the third phrase create an image of killing. Time "delves the parallels in beauty's brow, " or adds wrinkles to the body. Then it "Feeds on the rarities of nature's truth." The last line of the phrase gives an image of Time as death, or the scythe.

The turning point of the sonnet is after line twelve. The lines thirteen and fourteen add some optimism and comfort to this scheme and make the sonnet more lyrical. The final part of the sonnet clearly contrasts with the whole poem at many levels. Using the such means as: sonnet structure, repetition, contrast of themes and ides, the change of mood and tempo of the sonnet the author reveals the turning point of the poem.

The most obvious contrast is the rhyme structure. Which is different from the rest of the sonnet, which highlights the difference of meaning: The rhyme structure is: a-b-a; b-c-d; c-d-e; f-e-f-g-g. The additional structure means for emphasizing the turning point is the repetition of the word and as the beginning of lines twelve and thirteen, that carry the absolutely opposite themes. The tempo of telling is changed in the last two lines.

The gradual reveal of the time idea contrasts to the direct statement of the final phrase. The contrast lies in opposition of physical the developing and destruction of the body versus abstract the immortality of poetry. Only poetry can resist the time, resist its eternal run and forever praise the beauty, even if its long gone. The author insists that the sonnet (or art) is outside of the vicious grasp of Time. In the line before the couplet, the author says, "And nothing stands but for his scythe to mow, " but in the next line says that the "verse shall stand." In spite the disappearance of beauty and irreversible death the person will be remembered in his works, and this is his way into eternal life. The developing of the death theme in the main part of the sonnet in contradiction with the final life theme emphasizes the difference of mood in both parts.

The author tells that that life is weak and Time is strongest force, but the poetry is still stronger and it will remain. With the use of all these masterful means the author explains the importance of art and persons work for his own immortality in heart and minds of future epochs. The symbol of time in last two lines carries the reverse sense. If through the first to the twelfth line the author gradually approached the idea of time as an enemy, who carries the killing power, in the last two lines the time is pictured as a friend. Time is not killing, quite the opposite, it the force that will carry verse to immortality. Creating contrast between two parts of the sonnet Shakespeare adds ambiguity to the time idea.

Both themes are affecting the reader simultaneously, creating the image of time as both: an enemy and a friend. First English poets used the Italian scheme to create sonnets. Only much later the English scheme for writing sonnets was developed. The English sonnet scheme includes three quatrains and a final couplet that represents the resume of the poem.

Shakespeare used it extensively used such scheme and it was named in his honor. The form of the poetry is the Shakespearian sonnet; it consists of fourteen lines that form three quatrains, that traditionally from the question or picture the problem and a couplet, that covey the answer or resolution. Every poem, as well as in the classical Italian sonnet, is devoted to one theme only. As a rule, Shakespeare follows the traditional scheme: the first quatrain gives the exposition of the theme, the second one develops it, the third one brings the reader to the denouement and the final part a couplet in a laconic form summarizes the whole theme. Sometimes it is a kind of conclusion; sometimes, in opposition to what has been said before, an unexpected contrast; and, finally, some additional lines are merely added which are less expressive the rest of the poem: the thought calms down, the sounds die away. The sonnet is written in iambic pentameter with a few exceptions for adding emphasis.

Bibliography: Girl, Andrew. 1995. William Shakespeare. New York: Harper Perennial. Shakespeare, William. 1988.

Sonnets. Washington: Washington Square Press.


Free research essays on topics related to: turning point, main idea, william shakespeare, e f, three quatrains

Research essay sample on William Shakespeare Turning Point

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