The Immortal Work of the Poet as Seen in Shakespeares...

The Immortal Work of the Poet as Seen in Shakespeares Sonnet 55 Since the beginning of recorded time, humanity has attempted to give immortality through art. Great people have attempted to have themselves remembered through statues and other means. The poet too, has attempted the same feat. Capturing within his or her lines the essence and emotion of someone whom he or she loved. During the Renaissance, the sonnet was the poetic form of choice. The sonnet is only fourteen lines in length and generally had ten syllables per line. It was in this form that poets wrote some of the greatest love poems. The poet, especially of the Renaissance, saw poetry as the greatest of all art forms and therefore the most immortal. In Shakespeares†¦show more content†¦The first mention of the poems subject comes in line three. The beloved in the poem will shine more bright in these contents than in a stone effigy. The contents mentioned in line three imply more than just these fourteen lines. In his sonnet cycle, Shakespeare writes many sonnets dea ling with the fading beauty and eventual death of his beloved friend. Shakespeares sonnets are the beacons to the world reminding them about his friend. The problem with relying on statues and stone effigies is the danger of the elements. The irony is that nature and the elements show no concern for the artists talent or the memory and honor of the person enshrined. Time is the enemy of immortality. The time is shown to be a defiler. Shakespeares use of the word sluttish suggests time as being immoral. Time is also a slovenly housekeeper that does not clean up after the elements of nature. These elements build up eventually wiping clean any memory. The second enemy to the work of the sculptor is humanity. War that derives from humanities pettiness destroys anything in its path. Riots and mass quarreling are also the destroyers of immortality. The idea here is that not only is the work of the mason and sculptor destroyed but also its entire existence is rooted out of peoples me mories. War and riots uproot a civilization and the things that civilization held dear. However, war will not destroy the poets verse and thus the memory of the beloved. Even if war and