Chavez 1

Eliza Chavez

Ms. Gardener

English 10H/Period 4

5 September 2017

Shakespeare Sonnet 1 Analysis

In Sonnet 1, not only does vanity thieve the world of children, but kills one’s beauty

leaving it six feet underground. William Shakespeare’s vivid imagery, sweet euphony and

assonance illuminates the unhealthy “famine” of self love. The use of diction in the first quatrain

speaks of youthful beauty and the necessity of reproducing, having children, so that as we

ourselves grow “riper” our children themselves are able to share our beauty with others. As
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“light’st flame” indicates how the young man burns away the beauty he withholds due to the

passing of time; therefore, starving the world. Hence, giving an image of self- absorption

contained in this young male. The soft assonatic sound of vowels in line 8, “ Thyself thy foe, to

thy sweet self too cruel”-- emphasizes how vanity is causing him to be his own enemy, for he is

violating the moral presumption indicated in the first quatrain. In addition, when being compared

to “the world’s fresh ornament” argues that the man is in his prime stage of beauty. This then

connects to the way his beauty will fade for the harbinger to the “gaudy spring” is coming to an

end. Digging up his own grave within his flower’s “content” is buried within those buds.

Implying that his beauty will not unravel but it will wither with him, causing him to have to

change his ways. Last but not least, there is the couplet-- as stated in the first line of the Sonnet

we desire increase in the fairest creatures as we ask them to “pity the world,” share their beauty

and reproduce. This foreshadows the bizarre image given with the poet’s play on words, “To eat

the world’s due, by the grave and thee,”-- regarding how the grave will contain the youthful

beauty as it feed on us until the end of time. In fact, the connection between time and nature

connect to the young man's mortality. We are slaves to time; therefore, we are a subject to death.

Nature has a lifelike quality that the poet demonstrated through the course of time, its beauty

certainly does die but it exemplifies the blossom of beauty and it reproduction. Something that

the young man is incapable of doing, so in the end if you don't open yourself to the world no one

will remember you or your beauty due to the selfishness of sharing that blessing trait with the

world, leaving the rest of us unable to share the happiness that could've been possible if the most

refining of people weren't conveyed with greed.

Original Sonnet
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Lusting for a creature beyond reach,

Beauty as fair as the night is dark ,

Rare as a pearl in the sand on a beach ,

Yet has a soul a soul filled with such stark:

Driven to waste by thy cruel stare,

Where others look at with such wonder,

For this being might never bear an heir,

As time leads one to the looming thunder:

Still won’t give a child to bear his essence,

Reeking famine to the world of his glow,

Longing to be within thy sweet presence,

The spring’s death brings end to the ocean flow:

Starved the world cold, even a child to be ,

Consuming of what is left of thee.