Brittney Paul
ENG 260
March 8, 2015
Marschaneil Brown
Comparing “Sonnet 130” and “The Oven Bird”
“Sonnet 130” written by William Shakespeare and “The Oven Bird” by Robert Frost are both sonnets, but written in a different ways. Even though they were written years apart, they have some similarities and differences. Each author does however make the sonnets their own by adding pieces that are unique to them. After reading both “Sonnet 130” and “The Oven Bird” readers are able to analyze each sonnet by looking at the poems rhyme scheme, form, and structure.
William Shakespeare wrote “Sonnet 130” sometime in the mid-1590s, but it wasn’t published until 1609. “Shakespeare’s collections of sonnets are concerning four characters: the speaker, a handsome young man, an older woman, and another poet who is a rival of the speaker” ("An Analysis of Sonnet 130 by William Shakespeare," n.d.). In “Sonnet 130,” the speaker in this poem, describes the woman that he loves in a very critical way, but claims that he does in fact love her. “The Oven Bird” was written much later in 1916 by American poet, Robert Frost. In the poem, the bird is personified as possessing the human characteristic of knowledge. Frost uses personification in order to send the message that bird has “knowledge and understanding of the different seasons and what occurs in each season” ("The Oven Bird - Robert Frost,” n.d.). Unlike “Sonnet 130” the theme of this poem is not love, but about life being too short.
This Shakespearean sonnet is consisted of three quatrains and a couplet with a rhyme scheme of: abab, bcbc, cdcd, ee. In “Sonnet 130” the first twelve lines are used to compare the woman in an unflattering way to nature’s beauties ("Poetic Form: Sonnet," n.d.). The ending, however provides readers with a twist: “And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare/As any she belied with false compare”