Wednesday, September 9, 2015

Shall I compare thee to my dear and loving husband?

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day? by William Shakespeare
Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate.
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer’s lease hath all too short a date.
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimmed;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance, or nature’s changing course, untrimmed;
But thy eternal summer shall not fade,
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st,
Nor shall death brag thou wand’rest in his shade,
When in eternal lines to Time thou grow’st.
     So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,
     So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

Anne Bradstreet's "To My Dear and Loving Husband" instantly reminded me of Shakespeare's most famous poem, "Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?" Both poems speak to/of a significant other. Shakespeare and Bradstreet talk of how wonderful/delightful companionship with this person is. They use specific images and comparisons to explain how valuable the person's love is to them. At the very end of both poems, they admit that as long as they'll live they will love this person with all their being and heart. 

7 comments:

  1. That was the first poem I thought of too! They both deal with many of the same themes of romance and love.

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  2. Shakespeare's imagery is so powerful, and his metaphors are incredible.

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  3. Well, if your poems are compared to Shakespeare, you know you've done something right.

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  4. I'd say that sounds about right. Shakespeare has a lot of things that we can relate to many different things in today's world.

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  5. I love Shakespeare so much,, I never thought about how alike those two poems are. They are both incredible writers.

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  6. Both poems show extraordinary passion for their loved one. It seems harder and harder to see people like this in today's society.

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  7. I'm absolutely in love with this poem, reading it made me so happy!!

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