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Buchanan, Collins 1

Tiffani Buchanan and Dylan Collins

Mrs. Weaver

LNG 312

02 May 2011

Shakespeare and Snoop Dogg

William Shakespeare is one of the greatest known poets and play

writers of this world. His began sometime in April of 1561. He was born in Stratford,

England. His father belonged to the merchant class and his mother was a minor

heiress. He was the first born son out of eight children. He attended the local

grammar school, King’s Grammar School. No further education was documented.

The age of 18, he married Anne Hathaway, who was 8 years his senior. He and Anne

had 3 children: Susanna in 1583, and the twins, Hamnet and Judith in 1585.

Hamnet, however, died at the age of eleven. He joined the Lord Chamberlin’s Men,

which was an acting company in England. Some of his closest friends, Robert Green,

Richard Burbage, and Will Kempe, were also a part of the acting company. John

Hemmings and Henery Condell published all but two of his plays after he passed

away in 1616. Shakespeare’s words are the thing that distinguishes his writings. His

plays and poems engage our hearts and our minds, exploring our most complex

emotions. He has a definite rhythm: ten syllables and every other syllable is

stressed. He often varied it but it is the same basic pattern.

Shakespeare’s Sonnet 18 is one of his best know sonnets. In this sonnet, you

get the feeling he is describing a love that goes beyond the mundane realm of

times and seasons. In fact this love seems to surpass the beauty of summer by
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becoming a part of an eternal heavenly realm. He uses metaphors, personification,

and figurative language to create this sense of love.

Shakespeare uses metaphors to compare the speaker’s love to a summer’s

day. Because a summer’s day is ideal, the speaker is having trouble comparing the

two. He is trying to say that his love is better than ideal; he is saying that she is

almost perfect in every way. “Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May.” The

metaphorical buds are beautiful, but still feeble in comparison to his true love. It is

as if Shakespeare is deploring the turning of the seasons because it means his love

would be lost. In line 4, he creates a feeling that the summer is something that can

be rented out. However, we know that the weather is not something that can be

bought or sold.

Shakespeare uses personification in order to emphasize on his theme.

“Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines” (line 5). Instead of saying, “sometime

too hot the sun shines,” Shakespeare replaces “sun” with an eye. He is making the

point that summer is too hot and it is intolerable but love is endurable. He uses this

to show that. Not only does Shakespeare compare love to day, he also compares

love to darkness. “Nor shall Death brag thou wand’rest in his shade” (line 11).

Shakespeare characterizes death, giving it a human emotion. He chose to give

death a “right” of bragging because he knows that death is cruel and knows it can

take away life in a single second. He also describes summer as a physical person.

He says that is has a lease on summer. But a lease is something that can only be

used in the human world.

The last literary device he uses in this sonnet is figurative language. “But thy

eternal summer shall not fade.” Shakespeare uses this figurative language to show
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how he is going to save his lover’s beauty from dying out. He is trying to express

his want to make his lover immortal so he can cherish her beauty and never let it

fade away. Shakespeare makes the speaker’s love seem like she will live forever

because in the last two lines he states that “So long as men can breathe or eyes to

see, So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.” He is saying that as long as men

are still on the earth, her beauty and life will last.

Snoop Dogg is one of the infamous lyricists in the modern world. He was born

Calvin Cordozar Broadus on October 20, 1971. He was born to Beverly Broadus

Green, in Long Beach, California. She met his biological father in high school. As

Snoop grew up his rapping career was forming beneath him. He met his best friend

Warren G. in the sixth grade. They started rapping together. Snoop’s career was put

on hold when he was arrested possession of crack cocaine. He was a drug dealer for

the street gang Crips. In 1991, his group made a demo tape and sold over 500

copies from the trunk of their car. He won many awards for his music. In ’94 it was

artist of the year; in ’02 it was the best soundtrack; in ’03 it was the best

collaboration video; in ’05 it was best video and best hip-hop artist; in ’06 it was

best dance video and best hip-hop video. He rose to fame after he was featured on

Dr. Dre’s album The Chronic. Snoop is also known for his profane and violent lyrics,

he also uses a unique form of double speech. He freestyles a lot of his lyrics.

Snoop Dogg’s song “Life in the Projects” talks about the people who live in

the projects and what they go through. He describes just what they go through all

the time. He uses figurative language, tone, and metaphors to tell the story of a life

in the projects.
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Snoop uses figurative language to portray the life of a thug in the projects.

He says “grass is cheese and cheese is power.” He is saying that to get money and

power, you have to sell weed and get the power in a gang. “Shootin’ dice on length

with a couple of G’s,” means that he is playing poker with a lot of money. He then

goes on to say that he shot a couple caps in his enemies. He talks about how hard it

is to live in the projects and not be in trouble. He also says that no one pays child

support and they are number one for murder.

Snoop uses tone to convey this message of danger and hard life. “Life in the

projects, bang, bang, pow, pow.” Snoop is saying that living in a place full of crime,

death, and poverty is the worst thing in the world. He states that “this is the land of

the scandalous and cut throats.” The tone of these lyrics is hate, anger, and

caution. He is basically telling everyone how his life was and how he came to be

what he is now.

The last thing Snoop uses are metaphors. “Grass is cheese and cheese is

power;” Snoop is saying that cheese is the money and grass is the drugs sold on the

streets of the projects. He says that he shot caps into his enemies. He is comparing

caps to bullets and that he killed people. “They give it up quicker and they learn to

pull a trigger.” Snoop is saying that boys who grow up in the projects have nothing

else to do or no one to care for them so they turn to the gangs and learn to pull a

trigger on a gun.

The message conveyed in both of these pieces of work, from completely

different backgrounds and completely different time periods, is the tone of their

works. Shakespeare talks of love, but Snoop talks about hate and destruction. While

the tones are different, they can be connected by the deep feeling in both pieces.
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Shakespeare has a deep, passionate feeling of love. Snoop Dogg has a deep feeling

of anger. Even though people can be born centuries apart and they live in

completely different worlds, they can still have connection in their words.

Bibliography

"Shakespeare, William (1564-1616)." EXPLORING Shakespeare. Online ed. Detroit:

Gale, 2003. Discovering Collection. Gale. Columbia County Board of

Education. 19 April 2011. Web.

"Snoop Dogg (1971-)." UXL Biographies. Detroit: UXL, 2011. Discovering Collection.

Gale. Columbia County Board of Education. 21 April 2011. Web.

Carlson-Berne, Emma. Hip-Hop: Snoop Dogg. Broomall: Mason Crest Publishers Inc,

2006. Print.

Katsan, David Scott, and Marina Katsan, eds. Poetry for Young People: William

Shakespeare. New York: Sterling Publishing, 2000. Print.


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