Shakespeare’s Sonnet 3 talks about using your youth unselfishly by creating children in your image to go on after you. “Now is the time that face (the youthful you in the mirror) should form another” the speaker says. This sonnet caught my interest because it goes so much against what our culture impresses upon us about how to best make use of our youth. Young people in America
There is definitely a big difference between Shakespeare’s time and our own on the subject of when (and if) one should have children. For one thing, back in the 15 and 1600s, people usually lived a good thirty or forty years less than the average middle-class inhabitant of the western world today. Shakespeare was very much acquainted with death not just as an amorphous poetic idea, but an everyday reality. For instance, he isn’t squeamish when he talks about dying in Sonnet 71 in quite graphic detail: “…I am fled/ From this vile world, with vilest worms to dwell.” (lines 3 and 4) Yuck!
The speaker in Sonnet 3 sees youth has a precious and fleeting thing to be used very wisely and not wasted on selfish pursuits. Lines 7 and 8 ask the young man “Or who is he so fond will be the tomb/ Of his self-love, to stop posterity?” In other words, the speaker asks rhetorically, “Are you so self-absorbed that you won’t use your youthful beauty and strength to carry on the human race? If you don’t have children, you will die alone with nothing but your own narcissism to keep you company.”
“This is thy golden time” says line 12. That simple phrase taken out of context would be read much differently by the young people of our time. Our longer life-span and comfortable consumerist society support the pervasive mentality that we have plenty of time to enjoy ourselves now and take on the responsibilities of raising a family later (or not at all). Unlike the people in Shakespeare’s time, we do our best to forget about death an inevitability. If we are not confronted with death on a daily basis, why would we see the need to make the most of our limited time? Why would we desire to create children to carry on after us if we cannot even conceive of a time when we will not be living? It’s fascinating how much our culture (media, medical advancements, technology, access to goods and resources, etc.) can drastically change how we think about something as basic and essential as having our own children.
Very interesting, and I definitely agree that the poem you posted is very similar to Sonnet 3. Especially when it talks of wrinkles, and age. I want to pose a question to you, though. Why do you think Shakespeare's sonnet 3 differs so much from his sonnet 71? They are obviously very different when it comes to talking about life and death and youth.
ReplyDeleteI would have to agree that this sonnet suggests to not take your youth for granted and that the youth described back in Shakespeare's time was very different from ours. I think one factor to consider is that back in this time, people did not live as long as we do now, so that is why they hurried to have children and get married. Whereas no we have more medications and cures, so we live longer, and have different expectations and experiences in our youth. It is interesting how much knowledge and history we learn from just a few lines.
ReplyDeleteTo answer your question, Kristen, I think they are very much the same in their strong awareness of death. Death is very real to the speaker(s) in Sonnets 3 and 71, but each expresses a diferent aspect of that reality. Sonnet 3 advises a young person about what to do before he grows old and dies and Sonnet 71 adresses a loved one telling him or her not to morn after the speaker's death because that death is an inevitable part of life on this earth. In short, the first adresses what one should do with life while you have it and the second adresses what to once you've experienced the death of a loved one (in this case specifically the speaker).
ReplyDeleteI don't think that this sonnet has to do so much with letting your youth go to waste, I believe it has to do with 'opening' yourself up to more people, accepting the fact that they may not be as great as you. The sonnet mentions an "uneared womb" (5) which goes hand in hand with (13) and (14) "Die single and thine image dies with thee."
ReplyDeleteAfter all, it is ones kin, ones children and offspring that will carry the stories of you throughout time.