The Analysis of Sonnet 54

The sonnets of William Shakespeare are the greatest treasure of English literature. His sonnets are called typical “Shakespeare's Sonnets”, characterized by unique structure and beautiful words. This paper will take sonnet 54 as an example to analyze the artistic features and poetic beauty.

O! how much more doth beauty beauteous seem

By that sweet ornament which truth doth give!

The rose looks fair,but fairer we it deem

For that sweet odour,which doth in it live.

The canker blooms have full as deep a dye

As the perfumed tincture of the roses,

Hang on such thorns,and play as wantonly,

When summer's breath their masked buds discloses;

But,for their virtue only is their show,

They live unwoo'd,and unrespected fade,

Die to themselves.Sweet roses do not so;

Of their sweet deaths are sweetest odours made:

And so of you,beauteous and lovely youth,

When that shall vade,my verse distills your truth.

1. The Themes of Sonnet 54

The themes of this sonnet are truth and beauty. The first two lines “O!how much more doth beauty beauteous seem/By that sweet ornament which truth doth give!”claim that truth is beauty. Then the poet gives further explanation in following lines. “The rose looks fair, but fairer we it deem/ For that sweet odour, which doth in it live.”It says that rose looks fair because it has fragrance. Here “odour” is the metaphor of “truth”, so rose is beautiful because of truth. From the fifth line to the twelfth line, the poet makes a comparation between the rose and the canker. Cankers look like roses, but they lack odour which means “truth”, so their beauty won't last long. By contrast, even if roses die, people will remember their beauty because their sweetest odours are distilled. From this we see the poet wants to say that truth is beauty and only truth makes beauty last long. So in the couplet, the poet tells the listener that his beauty won't fade because it has been distilled in the poem. In other words, art is truth. Though beauty is easy to fade away, it can be preserved permanently in art.

2. The Structure of Sonnet 54

Different from most Shakespeare's Sonnets consisted of three quatrains and a couplet, sonnet 54 is divided into 2, 10, 2. The first two lines bring out the theme of relationship between truth and beauty. From the third line to the twelfth line is the body of this sonnet. It uses roses and cankers as metaphors to argue that only inner beauty can last long. The last two lines are coherent to previous argument and emphasize the theme that beauty is preserved permanently in art.

The rhythm is typical iambic pentameter. Each line has five feet and each foot has two syllables, one syllable is unstressed and the other syllable is stressed. For example, the eighth line should be read as“Whenˇsum′mer'sˇbreath′theirˇmask′edˇbuds′disˇcloses”. The rhyme is arranged as“a-b-a-b-c-d-c-d-e-f-e-f-g-g”. The word“seem”of the first line rhymes with “deem”of the third line, then“give”rhymes with“live”, “dye”rhymes with“wantonly”,“roses”rhymes with “discloses”,“show” rhymes with “so”, “fade” rhymes with “made” and “youth” rhymes with “truth”. Apart from this, in order to reach a good effect of rhyme, the poet uses inverted order. For instance, words “seem”, “deem”, “live”, “discloses” and “fade” are put to the end of each line. Besides, alliteration is also used for a better effect of intonation, such as “doth beauty beauteous seem” and “as deep a dye”.

3. Images

“In literature, imagery refers to words that trigger your imagination to recall and recombine images.”Through the deliberate use of imagery, therefore, poets tap your selected experiences in order to make their works lively and stimulating. In sonnet 54, the poet uses images of rose and canker to help readers interpret the abstract concepts, like truth and beauty. But the poet focuses on the difference between the two flowers. With describing these images, people easily notice the major difference between them, thus understanding the difference between two kinds of people: people with external beauty and people with inner beauty. And all these arguments serve for the final conclusion, that “you” is beautiful because your lovely youth and your truth are distilled in my verse.

4. Conclusion

Shakespeare's Sonnets can be spread widely for such a long time because they have poetic beauty and significance. Sonnet 54, with the eternal theme of truth and beauty, delicate structure and vivid images, is the representative work. This paper analyses sonnet 54 to help the readers appreciate Shakespeare's sonnets in a better way.

References:

[1]莎士比亚.李明强(译注).莎士比亚十四行诗[M].昆明:云南大学出版社,2008.

[2]徐朝晖.真与美的永恒—莎士比亚十四行诗第54首浅析[J].作家杂志.2010.

作者简介：崔静，任教于云南艺术学院，助教。云南大学英语语言文学硕士学位，主要研究方向是英美文学和大学英语教育。