33rd Sonnet - 1422 Words

In William Shakespeare’s 33rd Sonnet, the speaker remarks on the ultimate beauty of the sun and its continuous daily cycle. However, the sun is not completely unmarked as the occasional cloud shields the world from its glory. In Greek mythology, the sun was the ultimate ruler as legend says Helios would drive the sun everyday across the sky in his golden chariot. A similar myth is mirrored in Egyptian history as Ra, the sun god, was the ultimate ruler. The sun holds a vital place in the the human history of power and strength and is the keystone to all life. Although at first read, the speaker seems to be remarking on the sun’s eternal glory despite the occasional shielding cloud, in actuality, the speaker is drawing a parallel between his†¦show more content†¦Shakespeare cleverly uses punctuation to accentuate the continuous path of the sun as he uses commas and semicolons until the tone of the sonnet changes after line 8, however, he continues to use open end ed punctuation after the conflict of the sun’s covering is resolved to display that the sun’s path continues despite whatever comes in its way. The colon after the 13th line clearly continues the statement and acts as if to say the cycle of the sun continues just as the phrase will after the colon. The sun is still loved and revered despite the occasional disappearance. In the second quatrain, the mood of the sonnet shifts entirely as the sun is suddenly hidden behind clouds. Shakespeare uses grim, depressed imagery to articulate how the speaker feels about this change: â€Å"Anon permit the basest clouds to ride/With ugly rack on his celestial face/And from the forlorn world his visage hide,/Stealing unseen to west with this disgrace.† (5-8). The speaker is clearly perturbed by the sun’s pivot. The word â€Å"ugly† and â€Å"disgrace† conotes a personal disgust from the speaker as he disapproves the sun’s shift. These words also sugg est the speaker takes great personal offense to the sun’s actions. The word â€Å"forlorn† is used to describe the human world which literally means the speaker considers the human world as pitiful and