Shakespeare sonnets from the Longman Anthology of British Literature

Choose: Please choose ONE of the following two Shakespeare sonnets from the Longman Anthology of British Literature: either sonnet #130 (“My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun”) or sonnet #138 (“When my love swears that she is made of truth”). Title: Indicate in the title of your explication which of these two sonnets you’ve chosen to explicate. Write: one page explaining how one or more of the poem’s formal elements (e.g. rhyme, rhythm, word choice/diction, grammar, phrasing, imagery, point of view, double meanings, figurative language, sonnet structure, attitude [i.e. the speaker’s feeling about what he says] and tone [the poem’s implied attitude towards what the speaker says], symbolism) help create meaning and/or contribute to the poem’s argument. Another way to put this is: you should write about primarily how the poem means what it says rather than primarily what it says. Make sure you support each claim with textual evidence and a warrant for how exactly your chosen evidence proves your claim. Two optional ways to help you get started: 1) Before writing, you might paraphrase for yourself the poem’s content, then list all the formal elements that resist paraphrase but still contribute to the poem’s effect on the reader. 2) Ask yourself what difference is made by the fact that the poem is not another type of writing (for example a piece of expository prose or a newspaper article or an essay) or even another medium (for example a film clip or a piece of visual art).