Sonnet 12

by William Shakespeare

The famous Sonnet 12 by William Shakespeare, which begins with the line "When I do count the clock that tells the time"

Genres: Poetry, Classics, Shakespeare

1 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 25, 2012

About the author

William Shakespeare was an English playwright, poet, and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon" (or simply "the Bard"). His extant works, including collaborations, consist of some 39 plays, 154 sonnets, three long narrative poems, and a few other verses, some of uncertain authorship. His plays have been translated into every major living language and are performed more often than those of any other playwright. Shakespeare remains arguably the most influential writer in the English language, and his works continue to be studied and reinterpreted.
Shakespeare was born and raised in Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire. At the age of 18, he married Anne Hathaway, with whom he had three children: Susanna, and twins Hamnet and Judith. Sometime between 1585 and 1592, he began a successful career in London as an actor, writer, and part-owner ("sharer") of a playing company called the Lord Chamberlain's Men, later known as the King's Men after the ascension of King James VI and I of Scotland to the English throne. At age 49 (around 1613), he appears to have retired to Stratford, where he died three years later. Few records of Shakespeare's private life survive; this has stimulated considerable speculation about such matters as his physical appearance, his sexuality, his religious beliefs, and even certain fringe theories as to whether the works attributed to him were written by others.
Shakespeare produced most of his known works between 1589 and 1613. His early plays were primarily comedies and histories and are regarded as some of the best works produced in these genres. He then wrote mainly tragedies until 1608, among them Hamlet, Romeo and Juliet, Othello, King Lear, and Macbeth, all considered to be among the finest works in the English language. In the last phase of his life, he wrote tragicomedies (also known as romances) and collaborated with other playwrights.
Many of Shakespeare's plays were published in editions of varying quality and accuracy during his lifetime. However, in 1623, John Heminge and Henry Condell, two fellow actors and friends of Shakespeare's, published a more definitive text known as the First Folio, a posthumous collected edition of Shakespeare's dramatic works that includes 36 of his plays. Its Preface was a prescient poem by Ben Jonson, a former rival of Shakespeare, that hailed Shakespeare with the now famous epithet: "not of an age, but for all time".

Reviews

[John Yelverton · Rating 3 out of 5]

It is a bit of a depressing sonnet by William Shakespeare about time and how it passes us by and leads to death.

[Preetam Chatterjee · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sonnet 12 yet again verbalizes of the barrenness of bachelorhood and advocates matrimony and brood as a means of immortality. Furthermore, the sonnet congregates the arguments of Sonnets 5, 6 and 7 in a rewording of the suggestion of using Procreation to defeat time.

This sonnet institutes an analogous method of measuring the passage of time, the passage of nature, and the passage of youth through life — putrefaction.

As the poet looks at the timepiece indicating the transience of time, he visualises the gorgeous day turning into an atrociously shadowy night. The violet loses its sparkle and grows fainter with time. A young man with black curls turns into an old man with silvery white hair with time.

Tall trees lose their leaves and turn infertile — the trees which used to afford silhouette and sanctuary to herds of sheep grazing in the heat of summer. Green grass becomes dehydrated and golden; in autumn it is cut, tied up in bundles of hay and carted away.

When the poet views all this, he dismays the passing away of his friend’s gorgeousness, youth and dynamism. In course of time the friend too will grow old and die. But he will not be remembered after death as he hasn’t got married and produced children — his own likenesses.

Only children guarantee the prolonged existence of a human being against death. Consequently the friend should get married and generate children so that he is remembered by the world after his death.

Shakespeare depicts natural phenomenon garishly in this sonnet, such as the falling of leaves, the grass drying up and the trees shorn of their shrubbery with the passage of time, to tell his young friend to get married and beget children so that he is remembered after his bereavement.

Everything in nature perishes with time, so will he unless he rectifies the situation when he is in the prime of his life.

[Amelia Bujar · Rating 3 out of 5]

FULL REVIEW ON MY WEBSITE
https://thebookcornerchronicles.com/2...

This sonnet takes about barrenness of bachelorhood which really is relevant today. But it had very old perspective on it.

This sonnet was super interesting and enjoyable as well, but still it didn’t speak to me so much as I wished it would.

The writing style here was pretty okay but I was expecting something more from William Shakespeare.

[S]

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.

[K. Anna Kraft · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have arranged my takeaway thoughts into a haiku:

"Some project their fears,
Flinching back from Time's cool touch,
And preach private goals."

[Sargun Saddhar · Rating 5 out of 5]

Shakespeare thus far has never disappointed me, he's my idol. And this poem is a really cool exploration of time and the death of beautiful things.

[Vintagebooklvr · Rating 2 out of 5]

2 1/2 stars. Good imagery in this even if the subject matter is old.