Essay on the Artful Paradox of Sonnet 66 -- Sonnet essays

In sonnet 66, Shakespeare creates a paradoxical difficulty for himself as a poet. As Helen Vendler points out, the censorship expound in line 9 necessitates an absence of art from the poem (309-10), all the same coevally Shakespeare must keep the reader interested. He straddles this problem by move the tempo, creating questions in the readers mind, and representing intense emotions-- all through apparently art slight techniques. Most obtrusively, both sound technique and constant end-stoppage pep pill this poems tempo in an apparently craft less way. The sound techniques of sonnet 66 jingle horridly, fulfilling the requirement of artlessness, yet they likewise speed the tempo, preventing the reader from becoming bored with the poem. Vendler points to the presence of tri and quadrisyllabic rhymes as particular errors (310), but such sound repetition rushes the reader through the poem. Alliteration, as in beggar born (2) and needy nothing (3) assonance as in I cry (1) and And ca ptive (12) and consonance as in and gilded (5) achieve the same end, though with less apparent craftessn...