(855) 4-ESSAYS

Type a new keyword(s) and press Enter to search

Shakespeare And Olds Poetry Comparison

            The way in which people handle growing old can be very different. William Shakespeare and Sharon Olds, however, have very similar ideas of losing youth. In "Sonnet 73," Shakespeare discusses what growing old means to him and ends with a plea to the person he wrote the poem to. "35/10" is a comparison poem of a daughter coming of age and a mother who is leaving that time behind. The metaphors and similes used in the imagery and careful word choice used by Shakespeare and Sharon add to the images and feel in their discussions of growing old.
             The exercise of metaphors and similes is vital to the full meanings of the poems because they are used to give the reader very strong images. Each author uses several to make their feelings of growing old more impacting. Sharon Olds uses them in the way that she compares her daughter's youth to her lack of youth. The poem chronologically goes through the process of the mother realizing and understanding that while she loses her youth, her daughter gains it. The first image she uses is stated very well and gives the reader a good understanding of the poem right of the bat. "Why is it/ just as we begin to go/ they begin to arrive." (line 4-6) Then Olds starts to compare the daughter to the mother. "The fold in my neck/ clarifying as the fine bones of her hips sharpen." (line 6-8) This image is important because it signifies that the young girl is starting to grow into her womanly figure by developing more pronounced hips. The next image describes the mother's skin star!.
             ting to go and the daughter's skin starting to bloom "like a small/ pale flower on the tip of a cactus." (line 9-10) The simile used here provides a very descriptive image, making it easier to picture how the daughter is blossoming into her youthful stage of womanhood. Then Olds continues to describe this through the next image. "As my last chances to bear a child/ are falling through my body, the duds among them,/ her full purse of eggs, round and/ firm as hard-boiled yolks, is about/ to snap its clasp.


Essays Related to Shakespeare And Olds Poetry Comparison

1. Sonnet 18

Thomas Wyatt and Henry Howard brought the sonnet form into English poetry in the sixteenth century. ... Sonnet 18, one of the most famous of Shakespeare's collection, is a masterpiece that truly shows Shakespeare's incredible ability as a writer. ... The poem moves even further into the future in the fourth line by noting the duration of "summer's lease" will expire, showing the coming of old age. ... Shakespeare embarks on a journey of the opposite, to show the death of a season versus his lover everlasting life, due to his poetry. While employing the use of a Petrarchan co...

  • Word Count: 847
  • Approx Pages: 3

2. Shakespeare vs. John Donne

In the first quatrain, the speaker spends one line on each comparison between his mistress and something else (the sun, coral, snow, and wires--the one positive thing in the whole poem some part of his mistress is like. ... He had secretly married a sixteen year old to whom the first sonnets were directed toward. ... Sonnets were often about women or love and Donne's first phase of poetry reflected this definitive theme. ... The speaker of this sonnet has been called "anti-patriarchal" because it celebrates the fact that the dark haired lady is opposite of the ladies idealized in mos...

  • Word Count: 2289
  • Approx Pages: 9
  • Grade Level: High School

3. Dark Lady

"They are love poetry beyond what was considered love poetry by the Petrarchan sonneteers [ ] they are, often, ingenious exercises in wit-verbal, rhetorical, logical. ... The Dark Lady: "She possesses little physical attraction other than her bewitching eyes, has coarse dark hair, and a dark complexion [ ] strikingly red lips, a voice not altogether pleasing, is older than Shakespeare, and known by him to be an adulterous already. ... In doing so, he question the use of metaphor and simile use in poetry, because they untruthfully and dishonestly glorify other women [ ] the dark lady is beautif...

  • Word Count: 1195
  • Approx Pages: 5
  • Grade Level: High School

4. The Images of Irony and Metaphor

Irony and Metaphor are literary language that plays very important roles in short stories and poetries. ... Two sisters got separated since one is around ten and the other around 15 years old. ... A metaphor makes a comparison of two almost unlike things using connective words. ... The comparison is implicit, unlike simile where words as like or as are used. ... Without metaphors is like poetry missing a main ingredient in the main 3 course. ...

  • Word Count: 632
  • Approx Pages: 3
  • Grade Level: High School

5. Compare/Contrast of Sonnet 18 and 130

He was born at the beginning of the Elizabethan age, a most promising time for poetry, music, and drama. ... In 1582, when he was 18 years old, he married Anne Hathaway who was eight years his senior. They had three children together and it is unknown how the twenty-one-year old supported his family. ... The ordinary beauty and humanity of his lover are what is important to Shakespeare in the sonnet, and he brilliantly uses typical love poetry metaphors against themselves. ... Although his uses of analogies in both of the sonnets create a different image, the comparison of humans to nat...

  • Word Count: 1245
  • Approx Pages: 5
  • Has Bibliography
  • Grade Level: High School

6. Literary Trends of the Restoration Period (18th Century)

He severally demonstrated his animosity through his poetry work. In the year 1725, Pope published an edition of Shakespeare that attracted great criticism from conservative authors such as Lewis Theobald. Theobald published his edition of Shakespeare restored in which he termed Pope as an inefficient critic. ... The Rape of Lock is perhaps one of Pope's greatest works in poetry. ... For instance, the comparison of Belinda's toilet ritual to sacred rites portrays the excessive vanity of human beings instead of elevating them to the level of goddesses (Szwec, 2011). ...

  • Word Count: 1100
  • Approx Pages: 4
  • Has Bibliography
  • Grade Level: Undergraduate

7. Shakespears Mid Summer Nights Dream

Shakespeare proves here to be a master writer. ... (Scott 382-385) Mark van Doren explains the language and poetry in "A Midsummer Night's Dream" as an immense expanse of Shakespeare's extraordinary poetic imagination. ... Also the ability to describe the separate and often quite dissimilar regions of the play's universe by drawing on the rich resources of poetry. The words moon and water dominate the poetry of the play. ... This old moon wanes! ...

  • Word Count: 2937
  • Approx Pages: 12
  • Has Bibliography
  • Grade Level: High School

8. Midsummer Night's Dream

Shakespeare proves here to be a master writer. ... (Scott 382-385) Mark van Doren explains the language and poetry in "A Midsummer Night's Dream" as an immense expanse of Shakespeare's extraordinary poetic imagination. ... Also the ability to describe the separate and often quite dissimilar regions of the play's universe by drawing on the rich resources of poetry. The words moon and water dominate the poetry of the play. ... This old moon wanes! ...

  • Word Count: 2837
  • Approx Pages: 11
  • Has Bibliography
  • Grade Level: High School

9. Analysis of Love-Themed Poetry

One story I remember the most was one she told about when he passed away; she thought they would grow old together, and a part of her soul died along with him. ... The metaphor in this poem which is described concise form of comparison equating two things that may, at first, seems completely dissimilar, often an abstraction and a concrete image. ... At the end of the poem she suggests that she wants to love him more and more as they grow old together but if that doesn't happen then she will see him in heaven, she writes, "Smiles, tears, of all my life! ... Shakespeare's "S...

  • Word Count: 1336
  • Approx Pages: 5
  • Has Bibliography
  • Grade Level: High School

Got a writing question? Ask our professional writer!
Submit My Question