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Schule > Englisch > Shakespeare, William and the Sonnets > W. Shakespeare, Sonnet No.12

William Shakespeare, Sonnet No.12

Describe the speaker’s observations of transitoriness as expressed in this sonnet (also take into account the images he used)!
First he describes the change between night and day. The day goes and the night comes and in the end of the night the day begins. This is a never ending circle. For the lyrical I the day is brave which sunk in hideous night.
Then the lyrical I speaks abut the change between the seasons. First it is spring and the violets are in blossom and then comes the summer and girdes all in green. After the summer there comes the autumn with lofty trees which have only some leaves . The lyrical I says that he see trees an barren leaves. An in winter the flowers haven’t got a chance to alive. So the lyrical I says: “And die as fast as they see others grow”. Everytime of the year goes away so thy are transitory.
And the lyrical I uses words which get in touch with the dead. Examples are die and brie. The dead shows that the live is transitory.
Analyse how the speaker’s emotional situation an his reflections about transitoriness are reflected in the structure of this sonnet!
The speaker is somebody who doesn’t like the night, because the night is hideous for him. Maybe because the sun goes down like everyone of us. And he thinks that something nice always change to something bad. A symbol for this is that he first talk about positive things and than about negative. The speaker changes his choice of words for example from brave to hideous, violet to sable and from sweet to die. Always when something changes or transists he uses negative words. This could be a sign for the assumption that he doesn’t like change. That he things that negative things follows good thing could be a reason why every second line is negative. And the rhyme ababcdcdefef shows the same. The rhyme is a change an the content of the poem describes a change. Everything changes and the end of lines/the rhyme, too.

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