Borruso 1

Mckenzie Borruso
Ms. Gardner
English 10, Per.2
19 September 2013
Analysis: Shakespeare Sonnet 14
It is not from astronomy, but from the stars that are his mistress eyes: the poet achieves
awareness of love, life, and longing. Shakespeare knows astrology, but he does not base his
judgments on the stars. He cannot see future events: good or bad. He cannot predict ones
misfortunes or tell princes if things are going to work out well for them by looking at Heaven.
Although he can predict ones future by looking into their eyes. He can see that truth and beauty
will grow stronger if his mistress would pass her characteristics onto a child. If she does not
have a child, truth and beauty will die with her. In Sonnet 14, Shakespeares use of cacophony
to euphony gives the sonnet a twist in theme and shows the reader the change in tone. The
bursting use of consonance throughout the sonnetsay, princes, and shallhisses
through the readers teeth. Shakespeare also uses personification to express times power: Nor
can I fortune to brief minutes tell, through personification, time inhabits its own human traits.
By not learning from the stars, but from the eyes of his mistress; provides the fate of his lovers
decision: to renew her love and beauty through a child, or to have it become deceased.