Book report on “The Sonnets”
This semester, I was not very interested in novels. Skimming a few pages now and then did not touch me deeply or bring me a certain special feeling like before. At the moment, however, I encountered a sonnet of Shakespeare. I was absorbed in it. So I borrowed “The Sonnet” from the library, and began my tasting, swallowing, chewing and digesting. They are not that long but indeed beautiful and deep. Through the reading of the sonnets, as if I am closer to Shakespeare, as if he is just telling himself as well as his feeling to me.Sonnet, originated from Italy, is a kind of lyrical poetry widespread in England during the Renaissance. With a single theme, the fourteen-line lyric poem is mostly about the transient nature of youth and physical beauty or love and friendship. The Petrarchan or Italian sonnet contains two parts, an eight-line octave and six-line sestet. Generally speaking the scheme rhyme is abba abba cde cde. Quite different from this, Shakespeare’s sonnets were presented in three four-line quatrains and a concluding two-line couplet, and it rhymes abab cdcd efef gg which makes the sonnet more solid but more difficult to express emotions out at the same time. However, Shakespeare’s sonnets are still as natural and smooth as possible, free and unrestrained, full of imagination and emotion.
One of the Shakespeare’s sonnets I like most is the Sonnet 29 which can be regarded as a typical masterpiece of him where the emotion fall and arise in a way that moved me deeply.
When, in disgrace with Fortune and men’s eyes,
I all alone beweep my outcast state,
And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries,
And look upon myself and curse my fate,
Wishing me like to one more rich in hope,
Featured like him, like him with friends possessed,
Desiring this man’s art and that man’s scope,
With what I most enjoy contented least;
Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising,
Haply I think on thee—and then my state,
Like to the lark at break of the day arising
From sullen earth, sings hymns at heaven’s gate,
For thy sweet love remembered such wealth brings
That then I scorn to change my state with kings.
At the very beginning, the deep depression and loneliness are felt. He shows us the great misfortune and the darkness of life. As if the voice is going through his situation and finding that he is at an all-time low. He tries to crying for help, but what is the result? His plaintive cries falls on deaf heaven, not even God or any angels could feel him and tolerate his complaints. Comparing those others, how much he wishes to be like them with more prospects, more friends and greater range of opportunity. The feeling of uselessness and self-abase is nearly put onto its pinnacle, when suddenly he remembered the friendship of “thee”, according to some scholars, refers to a young man the sonnet is addressed to. His feeling and thoughts witness a thorough change. The memory of his friend brings him to the recognition that it is worth more than any amount of monetary recompense. The friendship and love offer him something far more meaningful than anything in the material world. Now he is so proud and hopeful that he even does not want to change his state with kings. How great the friendship and love are! I am deeply moved and shocked indeed.
Except this sonnet, many others show us the very feelings of Shakespeare in different ways. What impresses me most also include the beautiful natural images appear in the sonnets. Such as rose in Sonnet 1 and Sonnet 35 shows that his friend is as beautiful as the rose even though he may have small shortcomings just like the rose’s thorn; the stars in Sonnet 15 symbolize the friend’s love brightens the deep heart of him even in all gloomy and dark night; ocean in Sonnet 80 indicates the broad mind of his friend and spring, summer or autumn for the friend’s beauty, vitality, generosity, goodliness respectively. All these make me refreshed and revitalized. In one’s life, what really matters is not the fame or wealth materially, but the true love and friendship from others. They are the thing that adds colors to one’s life and make it quite meaningful and valuable.
In a word, I benefit quite a lot from reading the sonnets of Shakespeare, and enjoy very much the process getting closer to him and his ideas as well as feelings.
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