“Dubliners” is a collection of fifteen short stories written by James Joyce in which the author analyses the failure of self-realisation of inhabitants of Dublin in biographical and in psychological ways. The novel was originally turned down by publishers because they considered it immoral for its portrait of the Irish city. Joyce treats in “Dubliners” the paralysis of will in four stages: childhood, youth, maturity and public life. The paralysis of will is the courage and self-knowledge that leads ordinary men and women to accept the limitations imposed by the social context they live in. In “Dubliners” the style is both realistic - to the degree of perfectly recreating characters and idioms of contemporary Dublin - and symbolic – giving the common object unforeseen depth and a new meaning in order to show a new view of reality. Joyce defines this effect “epiphany” which indicates that moment when a simple fact suddenly explodes with meaning and makes a person realise his / her condi
The sonnet was introduced to England by a group of Court poets during the reign of Henry VIII.
They translated or adapted it from Petrarch, whose Canzoniere was the model for Renaissance poets.
Most 16th century sonnet collections are addressed to to the mythical lady of the Petrarchan tradition: a woman who is both real and ideal, full of the highest physical and spiritual qualities.
A great technical innovation by English Renaissance poets was to change the metrical structure of the sonnet from Petrarch's pattern (two quatrains and two tercets) to the so called Elizabethan sonnet (three quatrains and a couplet).
Thus, they created the pattern which was later adopted by William Shakespeare and, for this reason, they were called Elizabethan or Shakespearean sonnet.
One of the most representative Renaissance English poets was William Shakespeare.
Most of Shakespeare's sonnets were written between 1593 and 1598 and had as addressee the young Earl of Southampton, who was Shakespeare's friend and patron and, in poetic way, may have been the fair youth sung in so many of the poems.
Shakespeare's sonnets were based on Italian and Classical tradition, in particular Petrarchan's Canzoniere, making differences.
In fact, in his sonnets Petrarchan ideal is reversed: Shakespeare's lady is represented as no goddess, a model of spiritual perfection, but has physical qualities of an ordinary woman, is a flesh and blood woman openly sensual and, in the same time, unfaithful (dark lady).
According to Shakespeare, the fair youth is a handsome young man who is shown as a model of physical and moral perfection.
A lot of Shakespearean sonnets are known as marriage sonnets because they urge a handsome young man to marry and beget an heir: procreation will ensure that the fair youth's moral and physical gifts won't be lost.
These sonnets are revolutionary in unusual description of various feelings and deep psychological insight and, then, the treatment of love described in two main aspects: spiritual and physical (despite Petrarchan, who described this feeling in Platonic and ideal way).
Some sonnets treat enemies of the poet lover (Shakespeare): the rival poet and time.
Time is the arch-enemy not only of the poet lover but of all mankind, threatening all the beauty and goodness in the world with destruction.
However, Shakespeare's sonnets indicate two ways of opposing time: procreation, marriage as a way to counteract the passing away of human life and the decay of all earthly things, and poetry , which can immortalize both the poet and the loved.
Some sonnets that have these important characteristics are listed below.
They translated or adapted it from Petrarch, whose Canzoniere was the model for Renaissance poets.
Most 16th century sonnet collections are addressed to to the mythical lady of the Petrarchan tradition: a woman who is both real and ideal, full of the highest physical and spiritual qualities.
A great technical innovation by English Renaissance poets was to change the metrical structure of the sonnet from Petrarch's pattern (two quatrains and two tercets) to the so called Elizabethan sonnet (three quatrains and a couplet).
Thus, they created the pattern which was later adopted by William Shakespeare and, for this reason, they were called Elizabethan or Shakespearean sonnet.
One of the most representative Renaissance English poets was William Shakespeare.
Most of Shakespeare's sonnets were written between 1593 and 1598 and had as addressee the young Earl of Southampton, who was Shakespeare's friend and patron and, in poetic way, may have been the fair youth sung in so many of the poems.
Shakespeare's sonnets were based on Italian and Classical tradition, in particular Petrarchan's Canzoniere, making differences.
In fact, in his sonnets Petrarchan ideal is reversed: Shakespeare's lady is represented as no goddess, a model of spiritual perfection, but has physical qualities of an ordinary woman, is a flesh and blood woman openly sensual and, in the same time, unfaithful (dark lady).
According to Shakespeare, the fair youth is a handsome young man who is shown as a model of physical and moral perfection.
A lot of Shakespearean sonnets are known as marriage sonnets because they urge a handsome young man to marry and beget an heir: procreation will ensure that the fair youth's moral and physical gifts won't be lost.
These sonnets are revolutionary in unusual description of various feelings and deep psychological insight and, then, the treatment of love described in two main aspects: spiritual and physical (despite Petrarchan, who described this feeling in Platonic and ideal way).
Some sonnets treat enemies of the poet lover (Shakespeare): the rival poet and time.
Time is the arch-enemy not only of the poet lover but of all mankind, threatening all the beauty and goodness in the world with destruction.
However, Shakespeare's sonnets indicate two ways of opposing time: procreation, marriage as a way to counteract the passing away of human life and the decay of all earthly things, and poetry , which can immortalize both the poet and the loved.
Some sonnets that have these important characteristics are listed below.
When I do count the clock that tells the time (sonnet 12, Sonnets)
When I do count the clock that tells the time,
And see the brave day sunk in hideous night;
When I behold the violet past prime,
And sable curls all silver’d o’er with white;
When lofty trees I see barren of leaves
Which erst from heat did canopy the herd,
And summer’s green all girded up in sheaves
Borne on the bier with white and bristly beard,
Then of thy beauty do I question make,
That thou among the wastes of time must go,
Since sweets and beauties do themselves forsake
And die as fast as they see others grow;
And nothing ‘gainst Time’s scythe can make defence
Save breed, to brave him when he takes thee hence.
Its meaning is contained in the final rhymed couplet: nothing can oppose time's destructive power except marriage and procreation.
The first two when quatrains describe the gradual passing of the time through the comparison between the harvested wheat, which is carried off on a cart, and beauty of fair youth, which will be disappear.
So, poet thinks the fair youth is a part of a natural cycle in which everything is destined to die; in order to survive death, a new life needs to be created.
Shall I compare thee to a summer's day? (sonnet 18, Sonnets)
Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate.
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer's lease hath all too short a date.
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimmed;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance, or nature's changing course, untrimmed
But thy eternal summer shall not fade,
Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest.
Nor shall Death brag thou wand'rest in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou growest.
So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.
The sonnet 18 introduces the major themes of the collection: love, passing of the time, eternity of both the poet and the beloved through the poetry.
It is divided in two parts: first two quatrains and third quatrain with couplet.
First two quatrains say beauty, strenght, love and youth are all unite in the fair youth; the turning point comes with but in the third quatrain: the fair youth, comparing to a summer day, will be eternal if he is sung in the poet's eternal lines.
The final couplet say fair youth will be remember through poetry, which is read by other man.
Let me not to the marriage of true minds (sonnet 116, Sonnets)
Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove.
O no! it is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wand'ring bark,
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.
Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come;
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error and upon me prov'd,
I never writ, nor no man ever lov'd.
The sonnet 116 describes the Platonic or ideal love.
The images that make up the sonnet are well known in medieval and Renaissance poetry: love is a beacon, a lighthouse, a leading star.
Love is defined as something unchanging and unmovable among the tempests of the world.
But, in the subsequent lines there is movement in time's deadly motion and in the passing of his brief hours and weeks.
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