《英美文学选读》应用.docVIP

《英美文学选读》应用 English Literature Chapter One The Renaissance Period I. Shakespeare’s sonnets 1. With a few exceptions, Shakespeare writes his sonnets in the popular English form of three quatrains and a couplet. The couplet usually ties the sonnet to one of the general themes, leaving the quatrains free to develop the poetic intensity. 2. The sonnet’s most common themes concern the destructive effects of time, the quickness of physical decay, and the loss of beauty, vigor, and love. Although the poems celebrate life, they are always with a keen awareness of death. 3. His sonnet 18 expresses th