Republic of the Philippines

Department of Education
DR. EMILIO B. ESPINOSA, SR. MEMORIAL STATE COLLEGE
OF AGRICULTURE AND TECHNOLOGY
Cabitan, Mandaon, Masbate
https://www.debesmscat.edu.ph

MARILYN A. PERNITO
Educ. 224
MaEd – English Language Education

CRITIQUE PAPER ON SONNET XV BY WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

Sonnet 15 has as its main theme the growth and decay evident in the battle against time, specifically with
reference to the fair youth, who is being encouraged to procreate and so sustain his beauty before it's too
late. The speaker is insistent, initially proposing with a universal statement in those well-known opening
two lines, enjambment encouraging the reader to continue on from first to second.

From the classic pure iambic pentameter opening line to the trochaic first foot of the second line, with the
stress on Holds....and the fading unstressed extra beat of moment there is something profoundly moving
about the idea of perfection lasting only a little moment.

In lines three and four the speaker adds a dramatic element, a metaphor, of the stage, surely a favorite of
Shakespeare's. Here the stage is the world, all of life, the universe, and on it there are fake performances,
sham and illusory scenes that are mere surface material. Life is a series of appearances, revealed
fleetingly.

And these life performances are somehow influenced by stars. In Shakespeare's time it was generally
believed that an invisible fluid came down from the heavens to effect life on earth, including human
decisions and actions. Astrologers would interpret these movements of the stars and predict outcomes and
best practice.

The language reflects the feeling of the speaker - wasteful/decay/sullied/war - who is adamant that, despite
this battle and time's undermining effects, the poetry will renew his beauty.