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Travis-John Prol
27 October 2017
Similarities:
Differences:
Shakespeare uses the English Sonnet style while Milton uses Italian style
Shakespeare uses the first 3 quatrains to detail the conflict, then the final couplet to reveal
the solution. In Milton’s, he uses the first two ABBA stanzas to depict the problem of self
while the final two CDE stanzas bring him to his conclusion.
Milton is more focused on himself (his blindness) and how he copes with his disability
whereas Shakespeare is focused on his feelings for another person, the details of his
Milton discusses his pain and self-deprecation from his blindness, which is overcome by
love that is title and prize, explaining that true happiness can come only from mutual love
Milton uses a negative and resentful tone, whereas Shakespeare is, overall, uplifting and
generally whimsical
When comparing Shakespeare’s Sonnet 25 to Milton’s Sonnet 19, there are just as many
common points as there are contrasting points. Both poets use the same general concept for
their structural writing in that they are both sonnets, although Shakespeare uses an English
form while Milton uses an Italian form. Both pieces have their own benefits and drawbacks,
Shakespeare’s 25th Sonnet traverses the subject of happiness as he evaluates the long-
lasting effect of titles and prizes emblazoned on the higher class. To him, these
accomplishments are shallow and short lived, only blooming so long as the sun (in the case
of this poem, a “great prince”) shines on their leaves giving them the value they crave; an
assessment that can be crushed with the simplest disparagement from the great prince. With
this in mind, Shakespeare creates a mortality versus immortality theme, contrasting himself
with those “who are in favor with their stars,” by implying that while their fame and fortune
will not last, his love will, making him the wisest and happiest of all.
In comparison, Milton’s 19th Sonnet is autobiographical, navigating his coping with early
blindness. Milton believes his greatest and most profound talent is writing, and spends the
first two stanzas of this sonnet distressed at the prospect of no longer being able to fulfill this
talent; that God himself will be displeased with him for not using it. In the final two stanzas,
however, Patience enters personified to remind the poet Milton that God does not have to
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depend on the work or gifts of humans and that those who “bear his mild yoke” serve him
best; that those who “only stand and wait” can, in their own way, serve God in a way that is
worthy.
Ultimately, Shakespeare, literary genius and poetic prowess that he is, falls epically short
to Milton’s 19th Sonnet. While both poems are lovely, containing many similarities in their
structure, Shakespeare’s poem appears far more base and shallow than his successor.
Fourteen lines about love conquering all are, frankly, boring and banal in comparison to the
plight of a man deprived of his sight trying to understand how he can continue to use his