University:
Alabama State University
Course:
ENG 303 | Advanced Grammar
Academic year:

2024
Views:

369

Pages:

1
Author:

Sbabalwe T.

The poem is addressed to the Fair Youth, who is throughout the text complimented on his beauty. He seems not to have aged the whole time the speaker has known him. Over the last three years, he has remained just as fresh and green as when they first met. But the speaker acknowledges towards the end, he knows this can’t be the case. All people age and time moves so slowly that he just can’t see it. To me, fair friend, you never can be old Alliteration: used to give an airy/ breathless sound hyperbole He tells this young man that despite the time that might’ve passed since they met that he looks no older. Strong word To me, fair friend, you never can be old, Alliteration For as you were when first your eye I eyed, personified He cannot, in the speaker’s eyes, ever age. Such seems your beauty still. Three winters cold Anaphora Have from the forests shook three summers’ pride, Since the first time they met, three “cold” winters have passed and three prideful summers. changed Three beauteous springs to yellow autumn turned In process of the seasons have I seen, Flowering personified Assonance plants Three April perfumes in three hot Junes burned, Youthful Since first I saw you fresh which yet are green. personified shift Ah, yet doth beauty, like a dial-hand, Doesn’t seem to be moving metaphor Steal from his figure, and no pace perceived; Assonance Youthful colour So your sweet hue which methinks still doth stand, Love is blind Hath motion, and mine eye may be deceived: refers to youth as if a fruit has not quite ripened. A sense of NAÏVETÉ SIMILIE: In the same way as it is difficult to observe the movement of a clock hand, so too does the poet barely notice the aging of the youthful subject. This simile speaks to the power time has and how “no pace” can be perceived. He knows that the young man’s beauty is also changing. His “sweet hue” which appears to Ere you were born was beauty’s summer dead. hyperbole stand still is moving. It “Hath motion” and the speaker’s eye is deceived. He thinks about the possibility that his eyes have been deceived. He addresses “thou age unbred,” or the future generations. The speaker tells them that no matter what they see around them, the most beautiful person to have lived is now dead. For fear of which, hear this, thou age unbred: Symbolism The changing of the seasons and months such as the word winter, summer, autumn, April, and June. It symbolizes how beauty is always moving forward like the time on a clock, or we can say that beauty will slowly change through times. The word ‘three winters and summers’ symbolizes three years. Mood Tone Thoughtful; Pensive Fondness; Reflective Structure Shakespearean Sonnet- 3 Quatrains+ Rhyme couplet. Theme the inevitability of the passing of time of beauty friend, or in another word real beauty lasts forever. The poet uses iambic pentameter because each line has 5 feet, and the stressing pattern is all iambs. Regular Rhyme- not free (tight structure)