Question

Now that you have read sonnet 116 recall the language images and themes of sonnet 55. Compare and contrast these two poems by William Shakespeare. How are they alike? How are they different? And your response be sure to cite specific examples from each work

Answer 1

Compare and contrast these two poems by William Shakespeare.

• How are they alike?

Both poems refer to love, more specific, the relation between love and time. For Shakespeare´s lyric love can´t forget, it goes through the limits of times to overcome.

-55-

Nor Mars his sword nor war's quick fire shall burn

The living record of your memory.

-116-

Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,

• How are they different?

Both poems have a different style to refer to the same topic.

In -116- we can find word games and tricky rimes

Which alters when it alteration finds,

Or bends with the remover to remove.

In -55- the poem is constructed with intense and valuable images

Not marble, nor the gilded monuments

Of princes, shall outlive this powerful rhyme;