Shakespeare – Page 6 – Interesting Literature

A Short Analysis of Shakespeare’s Sonnet 4: ‘Unthrifty loveliness’

A critical reading of a Shakespeare sonnet

Shakespeare’s Sonnet 4 sees the Bard analysing the Fair Youth’s refusal to have children from a slightly different perspective, using the metaphor of economic and financial activity. In what follows, we analyse Sonnet 4 (‘Unthrifty loveliness, why dost thou spend …’) in terms of its images of money and spending, as a way of elucidating its meaning.

Unthrifty loveliness, why dost thou spend
Upon thy self thy beauty’s legacy?
Nature’s bequest gives nothing, but doth lend,
And being frank she lends to those are free:
Then, beauteous niggard, why dost thou abuse
The bounteous largess given thee to give?
Profitless usurer, why dost thou use
So great a sum of sums, yet canst not live?

A Summary and Analysis of Shakespeare’s Sonnet 3

By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)

Sonnet 3 in Shakespeare’s sonnet continues the Bard’s attempts to persuade the Fair Youth to marry and sire an heir. This time, Shakespeare uses the image of the Youth’s reflection in a mirror to make his point: ‘Look in thy glass and tell the face thou viewest …’

What follows is, as with so many of Shakespeare’s sonnets, an argument, or analysis of the situation, set out in fourteen iambic pentameter lines. Below is our analysis of Sonnet 3, along with a summary of the poem’s argument.

A Summary and Analysis of Shakespeare’s Sonnet 2

By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)

The Shakespeare sonnet that begins ‘When forty winters shall besiege thy brow’ is sonnet 2 of 154, and the second in a series of ‘Procreation Sonnets’. It’s a poem about ageing, and about the benefits of having children – continuing the argument begun in the previous sonnet. Below is Sonnet 2, and a few words of summary and analysis.

A Summary and Analysis of Shakespeare’s Sonnet 1

By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)

‘From fairest creatures we desire increase’: so begins Sonnet 1 in Shakespeare’s Sonnets. This opening sonnet is all about procreation, but also, perhaps, sexual pleasure (including solitary sexual pleasure – about which we say more below). For the next 154 weeks (or nearly three years, in other words), we’re going to offer an analysis of one of William Shakespeare‘s sonnets every Monday.

Five Fascinating Facts about John Heywood

By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)

Who is being described here? A provincial lad from Warwickshire in England, this poet and dramatist left the sticks for London, where he performed at the royal court, writing and acting in his own plays, including at the court of Queen Elizabeth I. No, not Shakespeare of course, but … John Heywood.