World Literature Phase 4 DB - Essay Example

World Literature Phase 4 William Shakespeare addresses the problem of time head-on by immortalizing hissubject within a poem so as to preserve her from the ravages of time in his 18th sonnet, often referred to by its first line, “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day”. He begins the poem by illustrating the many ways in which his subject is fairer than any summer’s day he can think of. In describing how the “rough winds to shake the darling buds of May” (3), he illustrates how his love is never shaken by troubling concerns nor is she prone to fits of temper that would make others uncomfortable.

Other comparisons include the thought that sometimes the sun is too hot while his love is never unpleasant to be around, never too intense. In these types of comparisons, in which she is not like early summer nor like late summer, Shakespeare indicates that his subject exists in a space of time that doesn’t exist, neither shaken by rough winds nor too hot for comfort nor too short for summer. Despite this, he recognizes the short term period in which most beauty exists. The summer is too short to contain his love, but as time passes, “every fair from fair sometime declines, / By chance, or nature’s changing course, untrimmed” (7-8).

As much as her beauty seems timeless to him, Shakespeare is acknowledging that time cannot be held back for anyone and will eventually leave its trace upon her beauty. The second half of the poem begins to describe her in terms that seem to place her beyond the realm of the living, “But thy eternal summer shall not fade / Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st” (9-10), because time seems incapable of touching her. This idea is negated in the next line though, “Nor shall Death brag thou wand’rest in his shade” (11), making the reader begin to wonder just how this individual is to escape the inevitable progression of time to which the rest of the human race is subject.

The only way to preserve such a thing, Shakespeare reasons, is through poetry. “So long as men can breathe or eyes can see, / So long lives this, and this gives life to thee” (13-14). As long as someone is capable of reading his lines, the beauty of his love will remain unforgotten and unspoiled. Because of these wonderful images that portray the depth of affection felt for another, poetry remains inextricably linked with romance and the involvement of the imagination.Christopher Smart’s poem, “Jubilate Agno” is quite different from most poems because half of the lines all start with the word ‘for’ and the other half all start with the word ‘let’.

It is written in free verse, meaning there is no set rule of rhyme or meter through the lines. This is very different from the poetry written by other people in his time who were using such rigid poetry patterns as the sonnets of Shakespeare. This poem is very long, as well, rather than being limited to the 14 lines of the sonnet or divided into the quatrains or other verses of other types of poetry. At the same time, the subject matter focuses almost exclusively on a reverence and worshipping of God in all of life’s little things rather than seeing love or romance or something more worldly.

A modern version of the poem, written to express feelings of anger toward President George Bush duplicates the segment of Smart’s poem that discusses his cat, Jeoffrey. This parody of the poem is not so well done, many of the lines breaking out of sequence as compared to Smart’s poem, but conveying the same sort of dedication to a pure thought: “For having considered God and himself he will not consider his neighbor. / For if he meets another president or prime minister he will kiss him in kindness unless he bombs him into the stone age.

/ For when he takes his prey he plays with it to give it a chance. / For four terrorists in five escape by his dallying” (Evans, 2003). As can be seen in this passage, rather than indicating the mercy of the cat who plays with its food to give it a chance to escape, Bush’s ‘mercy’ is shown to be a sign of weakness and incompetence. ReferencesEvans, Justin. (2003). “Jubilate Agno.” The Pedestal Magazine. Available September 12, 2007 from Shakespeare, William. (1969). “Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer’s Day.

” The Complete Pelican Shakespeare. New York: Penguin Classics.Smart, Christopher. (2002). “Jubilate Agno.” Representative Poetry Online. Available September 12, 2007 from