Holly Keaton

Ms. Gardner
English 10 Honors, Period 0
17 September 2014
Sonnet 65 Analysis
In Sonnet 65, beauty and even the strongest of elements are subject to Times force: the
poet hopes that through writing his love will live on. William Shakespeares use of forceful
diction and sonorous euphony sets the stage for the struggle summers honey breath faces
against the destructive Time, a battle which beauty cannot hope to win. Yet at the end of the
sonnet the speaker affirms that through the written word his loves beauty can live on. The
commanding and vivid words wreckful siege impregnable decays and battering days
personify Time and emphasize its dominant and powerful nature. Beautys campaign against
Time grows more hopeless as the question arises of how its fragility can withstand the allconsuming Time. Beauty is made to seem vulnerable through euphonious phrases such as O,
how shall summers honey breath hold out; a sweet and delicate quality is assigned to beauty, or
summer, as the soft, pleasing sounds resonate. This line accentuates the fact that as summer ends
and winter begins, so does beauty become aged and destroyed. Nothing is free from Times
tyranny - from the seeming invulnerability of stone to the gentleness of a flower, all face the
same inevitable end. The poet hopes that through his poem, his love may still shine bright. His
loves beauty may be reborn and relived through his verse, defeating the destructive Time.