Luke Karam
Professor Whitley
English 100
10 September 2018
Sonnet 12 – Shakespeare
In Sonnet 12 Shakespeare uses a variety of metaphors and imagery related to nature to say to a young man that one day his time will in this world will run out and the only way for him to pass on his beauty in this world is for him to pass his genes down. Shakespeare is saying this because it is something that is actually true, if you don’t have offspring and die your gene line dies right with you. The only way for the “beauty” of your gene line to continue through generations is through offspring. The author is saying we are in a race against the clock before we die, and this is how we make our legacy last generation through generation.
The what in this poem is the problem that we all face throughout our whole lives, trying to find the time to accomplish the things we want to do before it is our time to pass on. In this case Shakespeare is more focused on the beauty of this man being passed on to the next generation. He brings in elements from the natural world to really help deliver his message in this poem such as, line 5 where he says, “When lofty trees I see barren of leaves.” He also uses this imagery in lines 6 and 7, “Which erst from heat did canopy the herd” and “Summer’s green all girded up in sheaves.” The most important line to this interpretation is “Since sweets and beauties do themselves forsake and die as fast as they see others grow.” That line really supports that Shakespeare is comparing our time on this planet to the changing of the leaves. He is saying our time on this Earth is very quick, so we need to make time for the important things, in this case it was creating off-spring, but I think this could be applied to our everyday lives. Making time for our loved ones or friends because our time is short together, if you want to make the most out of this life you can’t sit by and watch as time quickly passes by. Shakespeare is telling us that we need to go out and make the things we prioritize in our life happen because time is moving extremely quickly and he (God) can take us at any moment or time.
Sonnet 12 accomplishes Shakespeare message through metaphor and some very good imagery, like barren trees and summer’s greens all dried up. The poem is a classic Shakespearian sonnet following the abab cdcd efef form with a couplet at the end. The author uses vivid imagery of nature to really accomplish his message. He uses examples of trees growing leaves and dying and the greens of summer drying up and dying. This helps to really show readers how quick time passes in our actual life by comparing it to how quick the seasons change. There is also examples of metaphors in this, on lines 1 and 8,” Brave day sunk in hideous night” and “Borne on the bier with white and bristly beard.” There are plenty of alliterations throughout the poem to help keep the rhyming format going; ‘count the clock’, ‘past prime’. He uses an example of personification in line 11 when he says, “time’s scythe.” His various usage of literary devices really helps to drive home his point.
Shakespeare does this because it applies to our everyday lives of course he is saying that you need to have off-spring to pass on your gene line, but he is also saying that time moves quick and we can’t just let that time pass us by or our beauty will die. Our beauty can be seen as what we can give and do in this world, and if we don’t pass that on we will be forgotten when our time comes. The literary devices he uses throughout the poem help to give more meaning to the words that he writes down. He is giving time some human like qualities to try to make it connect to our world more. The devices help to tell the story that Shakespeare is trying to say here, which is the race against the clock that we are always fighting. With the trees being barren of leaves is really good example of the race against time, the season change so fats which is what Shakespeare is trying to save about our lives they go by fast.
This poem really addresses the age-old problem of the race against the clock in our lives. You never know when the clock is going to run out, so Shakespeare says make the most out of the life that you are living right now and don’t regret the time you spent on this earth. It’s a classic Shakespearean sonnet that makes use of metaphor, alliteration, and personification. This is really a classic that can transcend time, it applies in any era that humans are living in.