week 3 writing assignment
Consider Shelley’s “Hymn to Intellectual Beauty” and Keats’s “Ode on a Grecian Urn.” Shelley contemplates intellectual beauty, while Keats considers the beauty of an urn. Choose either “Hymn to Intellectual Beauty” or “Ode on a Grecian Urn” and compare it to one of Shakespeare’s sonnets we read in Week 1 (Sonnet 3 or Sonnet 18). Does the speaker of Shelley’s or Keats’s poem attempt to preserve beauty in the same way as the speaker of Shakespeare’s sonnets? If so, how? If not, how are they different?
ANSWER
Comparison between “Hymn to Intellectual Beauty” and Shakespeare’s sonnet 18
The poem by Shelley connects spiritual beauty through nature. It carries a spiritual connotation where it reads like a prayer ton the spirit of beauty. The poet speaks of seeking a connection with the spiritual realm as a child without receiving an answer. According to the poem, connecting with intellectual beauty by imagination comes in the moments of openness and calm. This recalls the poet’s first encounter with the so-called spirit when he was in his passive youth. In conclusion, the poem suggests that to worship beauty is to reveal the freedom of imagination.
The speaker in Shelley’s poem attempts to preserve beauty in the same way as the speaker of Shakespeare’s sonnet 18. The sonnet talks about the beauty of nature, where it compares a woman to a summer day. The sonnet states that this woman is beautiful and will remain beautiful for the remainder of her life. The speaker immortalizes the woman through simple, clear, but powerful language and metaphors that are relatable to the reader. However, in Shakespeare’s sonnet, the use of summer to describe the woman is questioned, where the poem states that “Sometimes it is too hot the eye of heaven shines. And often is his gold complexion dimmed”.
The two are hence similar, where they use the beauty of nature as their key themes. Nevertheless, the poem by Shelly expounds more on the power of beauty, whereas Shakespeare’s sonnet explicates on the comparison between a woman and summer. The two are also similar in the way of writing, where beauty is the main keyword and is used continuously to refer to nature.
