Obey and Defy Shakespeare’s Sonnet as a Lesson About Time

William Shakespeare’s â€Å"Like as the waves make towards the pebbled shore† is an English sonnet about the nature of time, in which Shakespeare both follows and deviates from the traditional sonnet form. Reading the poem with this in mind gives the poem an additional dimension, and leads the reader to consider how this technique impacts the poem’s meaning. Shakespeare has modeled the poem’s external structure to coincide with his view that time is a destructive force whose wrath is unavoidable, and this is clear upon examining his use of a consistent rhyme scheme, his employment of trochees and spondees, and his adherence to the structure of three quatrains and a couplet. This poem follows the traditional rhyme scheme of†¦show more content†¦Just like the couplet has contradicted the body of the poem, due to the fact that it is two lines, instead of four, and contains a diverse rhyme scheme, Shakespeare’s final statement, that he is hop eful his poem will survive time’s wrath, seems to challenge all that he has already said. This is reinforced by how the poem’s final line also contradicts the meter that has dominated the rest of the poem; the last line is the sole line that is composed of nine syllables, instead of ten or eleven. This change in pace seems to echo Shakespeare’s contradiction; just as the nine syllable line has opposed the others, Shakespeare has gone from claiming time is invincible to suggesting he can defy it. As is evident upon examining Shakespeare’s use of a consistent rhyme scheme, his variation from iambic pentameter, and his use of three quatrains and a reversing couplet, Shakespeare has written â€Å"Like as the waves make towards the pebbled shore† so that the external structure supports his opinions about time, even as they change. What this ultimately reveals is that just as Shakespeare has both followed the traditional form of an English sonnet and deviated from it, he has also both stayed true to and strayed from his original opinion on time. Therefore, the external structure of the poem supports his perspective in both specific instances, as illustrated earlier, and in the big picture.Show MoreRelatedThe Controversial Ending of King Lear by William Shakespeare Essays1580 Words   |  7 Pagesonly try to express. Foakes thinks that Hamlet now is less suited for the twentieth century than Lear, insofar as Lear’s existential content is what matters, so now the question becomes why would Cordelia want to live in Lear’s world? The play is about protesting a world gone mad. The situation is further intensified by the Tate emendation that playgoers witnessed for over a century. Arguing from the perspective of post-restoration and neo-classical taste that literature must teach virtue, Tate