Which of Shakespeare's sonnets would be best to utilize for an analytical essay, excluding sonnet 18?

Question

[In specific, the essay will be directed at Shakespeare's craft within the sonnet]

Answer 1

Sonnet 73 is the ideal example of the Shakespearean sonnet. In my teaching I have always used it to introduce Shakespeare's sonnets, for most of them (naturally) allow some variations of the form, but this one follows the model exactly.

Sonnet LXXIII

That time of year thou mayst in me behold
When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang
Upon those boughs which shake against the cold,
Bare ruined choirs, where late the sweet birds sang.
In me thou see'st the twilight of such day
As after sunset fadeth in the west;
Which by and by black night doth take away,
Death's second self, that seals up all in rest.
In me thou see'st the glowing of such fire,
That on the ashes of his youth doth lie,
As the death-bed, whereon it must expire,
Consum'd with that which it was nourish'd by.
This thou perceiv'st, which makes thy love more strong,
To love that well, which thou must leave ere long.

Note the three quatrains (ABAB CDCD EFEF) and the concluding couplet (GG); the almost perfect, but not bouncy, iambic pentameter

That TIME of YEAR thou MAY'ST in ME beHOLD
When YELlow LEAVES or NONE or FEW do HANG

and the exact parallels among the quatrains. All three develop an image of ageing: (1) autumn (2) twilight (3) dying embers; in other words, the last of the year, the day, and the hour (if you think of dying embers as the last part of the hour before sleep).

Note the metaphor within the metaphor in the first quatrain. The bare trees of autumn are called "bare ruined choirs where late the sweet birds sang." In Shakespeare's England this is likely to have called up an immediate picture of a church that had been pillaged in the religious wars, left in ruins, perhaps with steeples and/or choir lofts silhouetted against the sky. The choir was the part of the church at the top, eastern end, the chancel, where the choristers had stood and sung.

This particular image became famous when it was used by William Empson in his noted book of critical theory, called Seven Types of Ambiguity, as an example of multiple layers of connotative meaning.

This sonnet is one of a group of four (71, 72, 73, 74) which belong together. They can be read almost as a single poem with this the third canto. All of them deal with the speaker's prospective death and his lover's response. They culminate in his faith that he will live on in his works (a very familiar theme in the sonnets), expressed in these lines from #74:

The earth can have but earth, which is his due;
My spirit is thine, the better part of me
. . . . .
The worth of that [i.e., the body] is that which it contains,
And that is this [i.e., this poem], and this with thee remains.

Compare these lines with the famous concluding couplet of Sonnet 18:

So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

Hence, taken in this context, the theme of Sonnet 73 is related to a recurrent theme in the sonnets: not only the mutability of life and the consequent poignancy of love, but also the immutability of the poet's work.

So, as you see, there is abundant material for an analytical essay in Sonnet 73. Good luck!

Answer 2

"When My Love Swears That She Is Made of Truth" is a great example of irony within a sonnet. And "My Mistress' Eyes Are Nothing Like the Son" is a great example of something only making true sense once you get what it's doing (it reads as if he's saying she's ugly, but he's not--he's saying she's real).

Answer 3

Sonnet 146 -
Poor soul, the centre of my sinful earth,
[...] these rebel powers that thee array;
Why dost thou pine within and suffer dearth,
Painting thy outward walls so costly gay?
Why so large cost, having so short a lease,
Dost thou upon thy fading mansion spend?
Shall worms, inheritors of this excess,
Eat up thy charge? is this thy body's end?
Then soul, live thou upon thy servant's loss,
And let that pine to aggravate thy store;
Buy terms divine in selling hours of dross;
Within be fed, without be rich no more:
So shalt thou feed on Death, that feeds on men,
And Death once dead, there's no more dying then.