By: Courtney Lazar
Antimetabole
Eye Rhyme
Identical
Rhyme
Blank Verse
•A rhetorical scheme involving repetition in reverse order
•i.e. “Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do
for your country”- John F. Kennedy
•Rhyming words that seem to rhyme when written down as text
because parts of them are spelled identically, but are pronounced
differently from each other
•i.e. slaughter and laughter
•The use of the same words as a "rhymed" pair
•i.e. All close they met again, before the dusk/ Had taken from the stars its pleasant veil,/
All close they met, all eyes, before the dusk/ Had taken from the stars its pleasant veil,/
Close in a bower of hyacinth and musk,/ Unknown of any, free from whispering tale.
•Unrhymed lines of ten syllables each with the even-numbered syllables bearing the accents.
•i.e. The poet's eye, in a fine frenzy rolling,
Doth glance from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven;
And, as imagination bodies forth
The forms of things unknown, the poet's pen
Turns them to shapes and gives to airy nothing
A local habitation and a name. –A Midsummer Night’s Dream (5.1.12-17)
Couplet
•Two lines--the second line immediately following the first--of the
same metrical length that end in a rhyme to form a complete unit.
• i.e. Pity the world, or else this glutton be,
To eat the world's due, by the grave and thee.
-William Shakespeare
Heroic Couplet
•Two successive rhyming lines of iambic pentameter. The second line is
usually end-stopped.
•i.e. O could I flow like thee, and make thy stream/My great example,
as it is my theme! /Though deep yet clear, though gentle yet not dull;
/Strong without rage, without o'erflowing full.
–John Denham
Tercet
•A three-line unit or stanza of poetry. It typically rhymes in an AAA
or ABA pattern.
•i.e. My mother’s maids, when they did sew and spin,
They sang sometimes a song of the field mouse,
That for because their livelihood was but so thin
–Sir Thomas Wyatt
Terza Rima
•A three-line stanza form with interlocking rhymes that move from one
stanza to the next.
•i.e. Make me thy lyre, even as the forest is
What if my leaves are falling like its own!
The tumult of thy mighty harmonies
-Ode to the West Wind
Villanelle
A versatile genre of poetry consisting of nineteen lines--five
tercets and a concluding quatrain
i.e. Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night by Dylan Thomas
Quatrain
A stanza of four lines, often rhyming in an ABAB pattern
i.e. Leap Before You Look – first stanza by W.H. Auden
Lyric
Expresses the feelings, perceptions, and thoughts of a single poetic in an
intensely personal, emotional, or subjective manner: musical quality
i.e. Italian Sonnet by James DeFord
Ode
A long, often elaborate stanzaic poem of varying line lengths and sometimes
intricate rhyme schemes dealing with a serious subject matter and treating it
reverently
i.e. Ode to Aphrodite by Sappho
Epigram- A statement, or any brief saying in prose or poetry, in which there is an apparent contradiction
i.e. "Beauty when unadorned is most adorned."
Epithet- A short, poetic nickname--often in the form of an adjective or adjectival phrase--attached to the
normal name
i.e. fleet-footed Achilles
Free Verse- Poetry based on the natural rhythms of phrases and normal pauses rather than the artificial
constraints of metrical feet
i.e. I celebrate myself, and sing myself,
And what I assume you shall assume,
For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.
I loaf and invite my soul,
I lean and loaf at my ease observing a spear of summer grass.
-Walt Whitman “Songs of Myself” first stanza
Prose Poems- Any material that is not written in a regular meter like poetry
i.e. The Lord reigneth, he is clothed with majesty; the Lord is clothed with strength, wherewith he hath
girded himself: the world also is stablished, that it cannot be moved.
Thy throne is established of old: thou art from everlasting.
The floods have lifted up, Oh Lord, the floods have lifted up their voice; the floods lift up their waves.
The Lord on high is mightier than the noise of many waters, yea, than the mighty waves of the sea.
Thy testimonies are very sure: holiness becometh thine house, O Lord, forever.
-Psalm 93
Aphorism
Elegy
Pastoral
Ballad
•A pithy observation
that contains a
general truth
•i.e. "Sits he on ever
so high a throne, a
man still sits on his
bottom.”
- Montaigne
•A poem of serious
reflection, typically
a lament for the
dead
•i.e. Elegy Written
in a Country
Courtyard by
Thomas Gray
•Creates an image of
peaceful and
uncorrupted
existence; describes
the simplicity,
charm, and serenity
attributed to
country life
•i.e. The Passionate
Shepherd to His
Love by Christopher
Marlowe
•A narrative poem
consisting of
quatrains of iambic
tetrameter
alternating with
iambic trimeter
•i.e. Ballata 5 by
Guido Cavalcanti
 The Petrarchan sonnet has an eight line stanza followed by a six line stanza. The octave has two
quatrains rhyming abba, while the sestet may be arranged cdecde, cdcdcd, or cdedce.
"London, 1802" by William Wordsworth
Milton! thou shouldst be living at this hour: / England hath need of thee: she is a fen / Of stagnant
waters: altar, sword, and pen, / Fireside, the heroic wealth of hall and bower, / Have forfeited their
ancient English dower / Of inward happiness. We are selfish men; / Oh! raise us up, return to us
again; / And give us manners, virtue, freedom, power. / Thy soul was like a Star, and dwelt apart; /
Thou hadst a voice whose sound was like the sea: / Pure as the naked heavens, majestic, free,/ So didst
thou travel on life's common way,/ In cheerful godliness; and yet thy heart /The lowliest duties on
herself did lay.
 Its rhyme scheme is a b a b b c b c c d c d e e
 Here, the "abab" pattern sets up distinct four-line groups, each of which develops a specific idea; however, the
overlapping a, b, c, and d rhymes form the first 12 lines into a single unit with a separated final couplet.
"Sonnet LIV"
Of this World's theatre in which we stay,/ My love like the Spectator idly sits,/ Beholding me, that all the pageants
play,/ Disguising diversely my troubled wits./ Sometimes I joy when glad occasion fits,/And mask in mirth like to a
Comedy;/ Soon after when my joy to sorrow flits,/ I wail and make my woes a Tragedy./ Yet she, beholding me with
constant eye,/ Delights not in my mirth nor rues my smart;/ But when I laugh, she mocks: and when I cry/
She laughs and hardens evermore her heart./ What then can move her? If nor mirth nor moan,/She is no woman, but
a senseless stone.
SHAKESPEAREAN SONNET
 Uses three quatrains; each rhymed differently, with a final, independently rhymed couplet
that makes an effective, unifying climax to the whole. Its rhyme scheme is abab, cdcd, efef, gg.
"Sonnet XXIX" by William Shakespeare
When in disgrace with Fortune and men's eyes,/ I all alone beweep my outcast state,/ And trouble
deaf heaven with my bootless cries,/ And look upon myself and curse my fate,/ Wishing me like to
one more rich in hope,/ Featured like him, like him with friends possessed,/ Desiring this man's art
and that man's scope,/ With what I most enjoy contented least,/ Yet in these thoughts my self
almost despising,/ Haply I think on thee, and then my state,/ (Like to the lark at break of day
arising/ From sullen earth) sings hymns at heaven's gate,/ For thy sweet love remembered such
wealth brings,/ That then I scorn to change my state with kings.
VOLTA
 A sudden change in thought, direction, or emotion near the conclusion of a sonnet.
"London, 1802" by William Wordsworth
Milton! thou shouldst be living at this hour:/ England hath need of thee: she is a fen/ Of stagnant
waters: altar, sword, and pen,/ Fireside, the heroic wealth of hall and bower,/ Have forfeited their
ancient English dower / Of inward happiness. We are selfish men;/ Oh! raise us up, return to us
again;/ And give us manners, virtue, freedom, power./ Thy soul was like a Star, and dwelt apart;/
Thou hadst a voice whose sound was like the sea:/ Pure as the naked heavens, majestic, free, / So
didst thou travel on life's common way,/ In cheerful godliness; and yet thy heart/ The lowliest
duties on herself did lay.
Antithesis
Dramatic
Monologue
•Using opposite phrases in close conjunction
•i.e. “One small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind.”
•A poem in which a poetic speaker addresses either the reader or an
internal listener at length; involves the revelation of the innermost
thoughts
•i.e. All’s Well That Ends Well by William Shakespeare -Helena’s Part
Imagery
•Not limited to visual imagery; it also includes auditory, tactile, thermal,
olfactory, taste, and movement.
•i.e. Above the quiet dock in midnight,/Tangled in the tall mast's corded
height/Hangs the moon. What seemed so far away/Is but a child's balloon,
forgotten after play.
Persona
• An external representation of oneself which might or might not accurately
reflect one's inner self
• i.e. Jonathan Swift in “A Modest Proposal” who proposes to eat Irish
children as means of economic advancement
Anaphora
Metonymy
•The intentional repetition of beginning clauses in order to create an artistic
effect.
•i.e. "We shall not flag or fail. We shall go on the end. We shall fight in
France. We shall fight on the seas and oceans. We shall fight with growing
confidence and growing strength in the air. We shall defend our island,
whatever the cost shall be."
•Using a vaguely suggestive, physical object to embody a
more general idea
•i.e. “The pen is mightier than the sword."
Paradox
•Using contradiction in a manner that oddly makes sense
on a deeper level
•i.e. “Without laws, we can have no freedom.”
Paronomasia
• The use of a word in different senses or the use of words similar in
sound to achieve a specific effect, as humor or a dual meaning;
punning
• i.e. •"Get that bird a glass of water--he’s perched!"
i.e. "I cannot say
that I think you
are very generous
to the ladies; for,
whilst you are
proclaiming peace
and good-will to
men, emancipating
all nations, you
insist upon
retaining an
absolute power
over wives.“
–Abigail Adams
Litote
An
understatement
in which an
affirmative is
expressed by
negating its
opposite
Repeating
identical or
similar
vowels in
nearby words
i.e. “Hear the
mellow
wedding bells”
-Edgar Allan
Poe
Assonance
i.e. Blue note
Synesthesia
Involves
taking one
type of
sensory input
and
comingling it
with another
separate sense
in an
impossible
way.
Consonance
•Type of alliteration in which the repeated pattern
of consonants is marked by changes in the
intervening vowels
•i.e. Deep dark dread
Alliteration
•Repeating a consonant sound in close proximity to
others, or beginning several words with the same
vowel sound.
•i.e. Peter Piper picked a pack of pickled peppers.
Caesura
End-Stopped
•A pause separating phrases within lines of poetry--an
important part of poetic rhythm.
•i.e. “Know then thyself //, presume not God to scan;/
The proper study of Mankind // is Man.”
–Alexander Pope
•A line ending in a full pause, often indicated by
appropriate punctuation such as a period or semicolon.
•i.e. “G-r-r-r--there go, my heart's abhorrence!/ Water
your damned flowerpots, do.” –Robert Browning
Enjambment
Euphony
A line having no pause
or end punctuation but
having uninterrupted
A good sound
grammatical meaning
continuing into the next i.e. Bells pealing
line
i.e. The Haunted House
by George Viereck
Cacophony
A harsh sound
i.e. A crow
Exact Rhyme
Rhyming two words
in which both the
consonant sounds
and vowel sounds
match to create a
rhyme.
i.e. pain/pane,
bough/bow, etc.
Internal Rhyme
Cliché Rhyme
Iambic Rhyme
Inexact Rhyme
•A word in the
middle of a line
rhymes with a
word at the end
of the same
metrical line
•i.e. I silently
laugh at my own
cenotaph,/And
out of the
caverns of rain,/
Like a child from
the womb, like a
ghost from the
tomb,/I arise and
unbuild it again.
-Shelley
•Rhymes that are
considered trite
or predictable
•i.e. love and
dove, trees and
breeze, etc.
•A lightly stressed
syllable followed
by a heavily
stressed syllable
•i.e. "The cúrfew
tólls the knéll of
párting dáy.“ by
Thomas Gray
•Rhymes created
out of words
with similar but
not identical
sounds
•i.e. Heartsmitten with
emotion I sink
down/My heart
recovering with
covered eyes;/
Wherever I had
looked I had
looked upon/ My
permanent or
impermanent
images.” –
William Butler
Yeats
Closed Rhyme Apostrophe
Written in a
specific or
traditional
pattern according
to the required
rhyme, meter, line
length, line
groupings, and
number of lines
within a genre of
poetry.
i.e. haikus and
sonnets
Act of addressing
some abstraction
or personification
that is not
physically present
i.e. "Oh, Death, be
not proud."
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,
Thy self 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, mak'st waste in niggarding:
Pity the world, or else this glutton be,
To eat the world's due, by the grave and thee.
POEM ANALYSIS
This poem is a sonnet because it contains 14 lines. It is a Shakespearean sonnet because it has the rhyme scheme
ababcdcdefefgg. Shakespearean poems end in a couplet. The sonnet is also end-stopped because it contains punctuation.
Inexact rhyme is used in lines 2 and 4 because die and memory do not exactly rhyme. Alliteration occurs in lines 1,4,5,6,8
and 11. Assonance occurs in line 4 because the “e” in the words “heir” and “bear” is a vowel being repeated. Line 2 is a
metaphor because the subject of the poem is being compared to the rose, which is usually a sign of beauty. Lines 3 and 6
hold the literary device of personification, because as time passes, the subject will get older and eventually die. Also, line 6
refers to feeding the person’s life with self-regarding fuel.
The sonnet introduces many of the themes that will define the sequence: beauty, the passage of human life in time, the
ideas of virtue and wasteful self-consumption. The first quatrain states that beauty should strive to propagate itself; the
second quatrain accuses the young man of violating that moral premise, by wasting his beauty on himself alone; the third
quatrain gives him an urgent reason to change his ways, because otherwise his beauty will disappear; and the couplet
summarizes the argument with a new exhortation to “pity the world” and father a child. An image present in the sonnet is
of a young man feeding his “light’s flame” with “self-substantial fuel." This image is used to show his self-absorption. The
tone in this sonnet is persuasive because the speaker is trying to convince his friend to start a family, so that his beauty can
be passed on through his children.
SONNET II
When forty winters shall besiege thy brow,
And dig deep trenches in thy beauty's field,
Thy youth's proud livery so gazed on now,
Will be a totter'd weed of small worth held:
Then being asked, 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 deserv'd 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.
POEM ANALYSIS
This poem is a sonnet because it has 14 lines. It is a Shakespearean sonnet because the rhyme scheme is ababcdcdefefgg and
ends in a couplet. The sonnet is also end-stopped because it contains punctuation and is written in iambic pentameter. In the
poem, the volta comes at line 9, where it switches from scary thoughts about old age to the possible solution of having kids. Line 9
marks the point where the poem moves from the setup to the payoff. He uses inexact rhyme in lines 2 and 4 because field and held
do not exactly rhyme. Sonnet 2 opens with an extended metaphor that compares the way time wears away a person's face to the
way an army attacks a castle. Alliteration and consonance occur in this sonnet.
The theme of the necessity of procreation found in Sonnet 1 continues here as well as time. The only way for this beauty to be
preserved is to have a child. The metaphor compares beauty to a battle field. He uses imagery to show the effects of time. The
young man’s forehead, “so gazed on now,” is imaged as a “field” that Time places under siege, digging “deep trenches” in its now
youthful smoothness. The metaphor fast-forwards the aging process, turning the youth’s smooth forehead in imagination into a
furrowed, lined brow. While the word “field” could allude to any kind of open land or plain, the words “besiege” and “trenches”
make it more specifically a battlefield ravaged by the armies of “forty winters.” In line 3, the metaphor shifts and the young man’s
youthful beauty is imaged as his “livery,” a kind of uniform or splendid clothing that under the onslaught of time will become a
“tattered weed." The quatrain seems, then, divided into two parts, with the metaphor shifting from that of the brow as a field to
the brow as clothing. That like clothing, beauty will fade or become tattered looking. The tone changes at line 9, where it switches
from scary thoughts about old age to the possible solution of having kids.
SONNET III
Look in thy glass and tell the face thou viewest
Now is the time that face should form another;
Whose fresh repair if now thou not renewest,
Thou dost beguile the world, unbless some mother.
For where is she so fair whose uneared womb
Disdains the tillage of thy husbandry?
Or who is he so fond will be the tomb
Of his self-love, to stop posterity?
Thou art thy mother's glass and she in thee
Calls back the lovely April of her prime;
So thou through windows of thine age shalt see,
Despite of wrinkles, this thy golden time.
But if thou live, remembered not to be,
Die single and thine image dies with thee.
POEM ANALYSIS
This poem is a sonnet because it is made up of 14 lines. It is a Shakespearean sonnet because of the ababcdcdefefgg
rhyme scheme and ends in a sonnet. The poem is end-stopped because it contains punctuation and is written in iambic
pentameter. The extended metaphor of farming runs throughout Sonnet 3 which helps show that if he wanted no woman
would deny him as a husband. In lines 5-6, the speaker asks the fair lord, "For where is she so fair whose unear'd womb /
Disdains the tillage of thy husbandry?" The word "unear'd" means "unploughed," and here is used metaphorically as a
reference to sexual intercourse. Ploughing the womb and sowing it with a seed results in procreation. "Tillage" means the
cultivation of land, and "husbandry" functions both as a reference to farm management as well as a pun on the state of
being a husband.
The theme of time is present in this sonnet as well. In this sonnet, the speaker is trying to convince the fair lord
that time will pass and his beauty will fade; he will not always feel such pride when he looks in the glass. This
unavoidable truth is hinted at in lines 7-8 when the speaker asks, "Or who is he so fond will be the tomb / Of his selflove, to stop posterity?" Here, "fond" means "foolish." It is extremely foolish to become "the tomb" of that which you love
so much about yourself, which is beauty. The tone in this sonnet is one of self-reflection. In it the narrator asks the
youth to look into the mirror and ponder the nature of his image. He also asks the brash youth to consider his mother's
image, to reflect not only forward in life, but back to his own family, and with it the very origins of his own life.
SONNET XII
When I do count the clock that tells the time,
And see the brave day sunk in hideous night;
When I behold the violet past prime,
And sable curls all silver'd o'er with white;
When lofty trees I see barren of leaves
Which erst from heat did canopy the herd,
And summer's green all girded up in sheaves
Borne on the bier with white and bristly beard,
Then of thy beauty do I question make,
That thou among the wastes of time must go,
Since sweets and beauties do themselves forsake
And die as fast as they see others grow;
And nothing 'gainst Time's scythe can make defence
Save breed, to brave him when he takes thee hence.
POEM ANALYSIS
This poem is a sonnet because it contains 14 lines. It is a Shakespearean poem because its rhyme
scheme is ababcdcdefefgg and ends in a couplet. The sonnet is end-stopped because it contains punctuation
and is written in iambic pentameter. In lines 6 and 8, it is inexact rhyme because herd and beard do not
entirely rhyme. Also, in line 2, antithesis is used because "brave day" and "hideous night" contrast. In lines
1,2,3, and 8, consonance is used because that lines contains two or more words with the same consonant
sound. Also in lines 2,5, and 7, assonance is used. In line 2, the words brave and day have the long "a"
sound. In line 5, trees, see, and leaves have the long "e" sound and in line 7 green and sheaves have the long
"e" sound. In line 7, synecdoche is used because "summer's green" is used to represent the bounty of crops.
The theme in Sonnet 12 is the passing of time. This poem shows the toll or tick of a clock, the setting
sun, withering flowers, falling leaves, the autumn harvest all make me aware of the passing of time
representing that everything will grow old and die. It also shows the importance of having children because
it is the only way you can defeat death. Color imagery is present in the fair lord sonnets as well, especially
in conjunction with the theme of passing time. In sonnet 12, for example, the poet draws a parallel
between the "aging" of nature with the aging of human life, opposing "the violet" and "summer's green" in
previous sonnets with the silver and white of age. The tone of this sonnet is persuasive because the speaker
is still trying to persuade him to breed because he will eventually die like everything else and there will be
nothing left of him to live on.
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 dimmed,
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance, or nature's changing course untrimmed:
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.
POEM ANALYSIS
This poem is a sonnet because it contains 14 lines. It is a Shakespearean sonnet because it has the rhyme scheme
ababcdcdefefgg and ends in a couplet. This sonnet is end-stopped because it contains punctuation and is written in regular
iambic pentameter. It contains an inexact rhyme in lines 2 and 4 because the temperate and date do not entirely, they are eye
rhymes. Sonnet 18 is an extended metaphor. Some examples of alliteration in this sonnet is spread out in all fourteen lines.
Words like shall summers, thee to, thou temperate, art and, more more, do darling, and all a, summers short, sometime shines, too
the, hot heaven, fair from fair, summer shall and time thou are all examples of alliteration. Examples of assonance are spread
throughout sonnet 18. Words such as sometime shines, sometime declines, breathe see and lives gives are all assonance. The
conceit, controlling idea, of this poem is in line one when Thee is being compared to a summer’s day, which is also a metaphor.
Antithesis is shown in line 14 when Shakespeare says “So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.” This is the balancing of
contrasting terms. An example of synecdoche is in line 12 when “lines” is referred to as the whole poem. Examples of
personification are seen in lines 3, 4, 5, 6, 11 and 14. In the third line, Shakespeare says “darling buds” giving human attributes
to a flower. In line 4, summer is given a life like quality to rent or to lease. The sun in line 5 is referred to as the eye of heaven.
The sun is being compared to a face having a gold complexion in line 6. In line 11 Death is being compared to a braggart giving
Death a human quality. In the last line of this sonnet, the poem itself is being compared to a living thing. Although all the lines
just mentioned are examples of personification, they are all metaphors as well.
Sonnet 18 is the first poem in the sonnets not encouraging the young man to have children. An important theme of the
sonnet is to defy time and last forever, carrying the beauty of the beloved down to future generations. The sun is personified as
the “eye of heaven” with its“ gold complexion”; the imagery throughout is simple and unaffected, with the “darling buds of May”
giving way to the “eternal summer.” The overall tone in this poem is one of happiness. This can be determined by the poem's
diction. In line 1 the tone can already be seen: "Shall I compare thee to a summers day?" Summer is a word that indicates beauty,
youth, and warmth. Also, throughout the poem, there are comparisons to heaven, the sun, etc., all being happy things.
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.
POEM ANALYSIS
This poem is a sonnet because it has 14 lines. It is a Shakespearean sonnet because it
has the rhyme scheme ababcdcdefefgg and ends in a couplet. The sonnet is end-stopped
because it contains punctuation and is written in iambic pentameter. The poem contains
consonance. In lines 1,2,5,10, and 12, two or more words begin with the same consonant
sound. Shakespeare personified ‘gilded monuments’ by giving them life spans. He also gave
‘posterity’ the human characteristic of sight. In addition, war is given the title ‘Mars.’
Immortality is the theme in this poem, which opposes the death and Time's cruel knife.
His beloved will not reach immortality through monuments or statues built in his image
because these monuments will wither from the ravages of time. The poet declares that it is
only through poetry that his beloved will live beyond physical death. The speaker of Sonnet
55 shows a hopeful attitude through imagery and structure. The imagery shows a positive
belief in immortalizing the youth. He believes that physical structures such as “marble” built
to last lifetimes “shall [not] outlive” his poem. The tone is hopeful and is apparent through
the theme and imagery of this poem, that one can live on through poetry.
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 wandering 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 proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.
POEM ANALYSIS
This poem is a Shakespearean sonnet because it has the rhyme scheme ababcdcdefefgg and ends
in a couplet. The poem is end-stopped because it contains punctuation and is written in iambic
pentameter. The speaker uses metaphor in line seven, saying, “[Love] is the star to every wand’ring
bark.” This metaphor is used to show the extent of the power of love by comparing it to a star,
demonstrating to readers that love can help people find their way. There is also alliteration. An
example of the alliteration is in the first two lines, “Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love…” The repetition is in the “l”, which is the first letter of love,
again stressing how important love is.
The theme of Sonnet 116 is love. It never changes, it never fades, it outlasts death and admits
no flaw. What is more, it insists that this ideal is the only love that can be called “true”—if love is
mortal, changing, or impermanent, the speaker writes, then no man ever loved. The first quatrain
says that love is not changeable, the second quatrain says that love is a fixed guiding star unshaken
by tempests, the third quatrain says that is not subject to change through time, and the couplet
announces the speaker’s certainty. The imagery in this poem is rather simple, comparing love to a
guiding star. The tone in this poem seems to be passionate because the speaker seems to be trying to
convince the reader what true love is and that it is real. The speaker describes love and makes it
seem like love is great and powerful.
SONNET CXXIII
No, Time, thou shalt not boast that I do change:
Thy pyramids built up with newer might
To me are nothing novel, nothing strange;
They are but dressings of a former sight.
Our dates are brief, and therefore we admire
What thou dost foist upon us that is old;
And rather make them born to our desire
Than think that we before have heard them told.
Thy registers and thee I both defy,
Not wondering at the present nor the past,
For thy records and what we see doth lie,
Made more or less by thy continual haste.
This I do vow and this shall ever be;
I will be true despite thy scythe and thee.
POEM ANALYSIS
This poem is a Shakespearean sonnet because it has the rhyme scheme
ababcdcdefefgg and therefore ends in a couplet. The poem is end-stopped because it
contains punctuation and is written in iambic pentameter. This sonnet contains the
literary device of alliteration which is present in lines 1,3, 8, 9, 10, and 12.
The major theme is time passing. Shakespeare begins his sonnet by berating Time
for its boastful nature and assertions that it creates change. The first quatrain denies
Time the right to boast of change in the author. Shakespeare continues berating time
for its trickery in the second quatrain. He accepts that mortal men are defined on this
life by periods beginning and ending with "dates", but disallows Time's assumption that
because it controls lifetimes, it can control all things. In the third quatrain,
Shakespeare turns from berating Time into accepting its power and control over their
lives to rebelling against Time's assumptions. His imagery is quite simple in this poem.
He shows pyramids being built that will only crumble with time and compares it to his
poem where the character can live. The tone of the sonnet at this point becomes even
more defiant and accusatory.