Hi Everyone! Today, I’m going to be writing about Sonnet 2 from the Shakespeare sonnets. I found the theme of this sonnet–immortalizing oneself through one’s children– to be very fascinating. The main aspect of this poem that I struggled to grapple with was its central conceit. After deliberating, I identified the central conceit to be the parallel the poem draws between an adult’s lost beauty and their child’s new beauty. It took me a while to identify this as the conceit because I couldn’t decide if these two things were dissimilar enough for their comparison. The main line that convinced me that this could function as the main conceit was the following: “proving his beauty by succession thine” (line 12), which I translated to “Showing that his beauty used to be yours.” Shakespeare’s idea that the adult loses their “beauty” to give directly it to the child implies that the beauty of a parent and the beauty of their child is the same entity. While the appearance of a child is inherently connected to that of their parent, I find that the directness of this parallel is what makes this comparison the central conceit, as it frames beauty as something that can be physically given or taken away, intertwining the parent and the child as if they are the same (even though they’re obviously completely different people). With that said, I would love to hear your opinions on whether or not you could buy that this is the central conceit of the poem. My favorite part of this sonnet is that, by drawing this parallel between the parent and child, Shakespeare is able to depict a parent as an immortal being, as they continue to live through their children and the following generations. The last two lines summarize the idea that children give youth back to their aging parents, saying: “This [their beauty] were to be new made when thou art old, / And see thy blood warm when thou feel’st it cold” (lines 13-14). Even though they follow typical sonnet structure, the rhyme and the form of these last two lines cleverly mirror their meaning–just like the adult’s dying beauty becomes “new made” through the child, the poem becomes new again through a new rhyme and the new form of the couplet standing alone.
Shakespeare Sonnet 2
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I also struggled to identify the central conceit of sonnet 2 during my analysis, but after reading your blog and compelling argument I’ve come to agree with you! I especially agree with your perspective as I feel this conceit and its implications align nicely with themes I examined in sonnet 1, those of gratitude and recognition of ones’ value and place in the world (at least in my interpretation).
Hi Claire! I agree with you, I also had a hard time identifying the central conceit in this poem. I had thought something similar to you, in that the comparison could be between the child itself and the parent’s beauty. However, I like your phrasing better, and how you’ve phrased it makes it easier to identify the tenor and vehicle. I also considered that the central conceit could be found in lines 3 and 4, in which Shakespeare writes, “Thy youth’s proud livery, so gazed on now, / Will be a tattered weed of small worth held.” I thought that the comparison between the adult’s beauty and clothing (livery and weed) that is initially beautiful but becomes tattered could allude to the idea that superficial beauty is fleeting. It might also support the idea that this superficial beauty has no meaning without a method of carrying it forward, which in this case would be the child.