Sonnet Essay Examples

Discuss the following poem in detail, considering ways in which Lowell presents the narrator’s state of mind Night sweat was written by Robert Lowell. Lowell was seen as the greatest American poet of his time. This poem is two Shakespearian sonnets. The subject of this poem is that Lowell is incapable to write due to […]

According to Clugston (2010), poetry is a form of literature that encompasses everything the poet perceives and all of their senses, emotions, experiences, and imagination. It reflects human life but is written concisely and expressively using figurative language. Comprehending it can sometimes be challenging. Poetry aims to captivate the reader’s attention and invites them into […]

Robert Frost’s poem The Vantage Point tells of a man who is lost in the world of people so seeks refuge in nature. A vantage point is a viewpoint from which someone is able to see a wide range of things. The vantage point in the poem is where the man goes to watch the […]

Langston Hughes shares a part of himself on his poem entitled “Harlem. ” It reflects his insight during the period when he wrote the poem which discusses racial issues that is rampant in the United States between 1920 and 1930 (Grimes). It focuses more on the conditions and limitations that hinder the Black people from […]

In Shakespearean sonnets (also known as English sonnets), all poems are written about one thing; love. Each sonnet consists of fourteen lines. A sonnet also consists of an iambic pentameter, a rhyme scheme in which each sonnet line consists of ten syllables. The syllables are divided into five pairs called iambs or iambic feet. An […]

William Shakespeare is one of the most well-known writers of all time. His sonnets are timeless and his plays are performed again and again. Much of his history is known, but can also be considered a little cloudy. He seemed to be a sarcastic man not necessarily loved by all. I enjoy his plays, but […]

As the speaker labors in his farm field on a quiet, hot day, he can’t help but notice that his scythe seems to be whispering as it works. He can’t exactly hear what the scythe is saying, and he admits that there is a chance that the whispering sound is simply in his own mind […]

Falling in love at first sight, Francesco Petrarch, an Italian poet finds himself haunted by the breathtaking beauty of Laura. Laura, already happily married, refuses to reciprocate Petrarch’s undying love. Petrarch, filled with feelings of despair and rejection, uses Laura as his inspiration to write his emotions and thoughts in the form of Petrarchan sonnets. […]

Love is a theme that can be written and expressed in many ways, using many different literary devices, such as metaphors, similes, personification, allusion, etc. The poems, Sonnet 29 written by Edna St. Vincent Millay, and Sonnet 43 written by Elizabeth Barret Browning, are both very different from each other as they both are conveying […]

The poems ‘Anthem for Doomed Youth’ by Wilfred Owen and ‘Reservist’ by Boey Kim Cheng both explore the theme of war and destruction. Through the use of techniques such as structure, imagery, irony, and literary devices, the poets convey their views on dehumanisation and the devastating effects of war. In ‘Anthem for Doomed Youth,’ Owen […]

The three sonnets I have chosen to use are, “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day? ” by William Shakespeare “How do I love thee? Let me count the ways” by Elizabeth Barrett Browning “Since brass, nor stone, nor boundless sea” also by William Shakespeare. I have chosen these three sonnets because I think […]

One of the most moving and the most emotional works by Seamus Heaney is ‘Clearances’. A brilliant sonnet sequence published in ‘The Haw Lantern’ collection (1987) written in memoriam to Heaney’s mother, Margaret Kathleen, who died in 1984. These sonnets are not only infused with the still lively and vivid memoirs but also depict the […]

In these poems each poet portrays love in a very different way, and each with a different attitude to love. As the saying says, “one word frees us all, of the weight and pain in life. That word is love. ” The two poems which I shall analyse and explore are, “Shall I compare thee […]

Owen looks at what ceremonies will commemorate those who die in battle. Title is ironic. Anthem is praise and this poem in no way praises the war. The sonnet asks questions about what will be done to commemorate those who die in battle. Octet says they will have only sounds to accompany their funerals, and […]

Close Reading of “How Soon Hath Time” Milton’s sonnet “How Soon Hath Time” is a Petrarchian style poem written in iambic pentameter. It has a rhyme scheme of a, b, b, a, a, b, b, a, c, d, e, d, c, e. Each four line stanza makes up one complete sentence. This structure is ideally […]

An analysis of the poem “How do I love thee? Let me count the ways” by Elizabeth Barrett Browning Title and Author Love poem “How do I love thee? Let me count the ways” is very famous sonnet written by prominent Victorian poet Elizabeth Barrett Browning. It was published in 1850 as part of a […]

Epic Simile: it is also called Homer simile because it was first used by Homer in his epic. It is also called the long tailed simile because in it the comparison is not condoled to some one quality but a number of qualities are compared and the comparison is elaborated and spread over a number […]

Sonnet 43 was written in secret in Patriarchal style by Elizabeth Barrett Browning. It was written in first person with dominant figure of speech anaphora. Expressing the intense love she feels for her husband-to-be, Whereas Sonnet 116 is about love in the most ideal form. It admires people who have got together freely and base […]

The poem Leda and the Swan was inspired by the Greek myth, in which Leda is seduced and raped by Zeus in the guise of a sawn. In his poem, Yeats explores the idea of a single action unfolding into violence and destruction. This could be seen as a metaphor for Yeats’s frustration with the […]

Full many a glorious morning I have seen Flatter the mountaintops with sovereign eye, Kissing with golden face the meadows green, Gilding pale streams with heavenly alchemy, Anon permit the basest clouds to ride With ugly rock on his celestial face And from the forlorn world his visage hide, Stealing unseen to west with this […]