Shakespeare's sonnets 12 and 73: a comparison

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Seminar paper from the year 2009 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Literature, grade: 2, 3, Christian-Albrechts-University of Kiel, language: English, abstract: When Shakespeare wrote his first sonnets, probably in the early 1590s, he was making a contribution to a genre that had existed in English for not much more than 50 years. In that time, however, the sonnet had become extraordinarily fashionable. Shakespeare's sonnets were published in 1609 in a quarto volume by Thomas Thorpe. The volume that Thorpe set forth is made up of 154 numbered poems which we consider today the Shakespearian sonnets. The 154 poems can be divided into two inter-connected sequences: Whereas the first 126 sonnets seem to be addressed to a young man, a certain Mr. W. H., whom the speaker encourage to marry in order to project his beauty and worth into the future, the remaining 28 are addressed to an older woman who provokes lust and revulsion in the speaker, this woman is generally called the 'Dark Lady'. The major aim of this paper is to focus on two of these 154 sonnets: sonnet 12 and 73. First, their form and content will be described. Afterwards, we will take a look at the sonnets' metaphors. Then, in the fourth chapter, I would like to offer interpretations of both. The paper will close with a comparison of both sonnets showing similarities and differences concerning form, content and metaphors.