20 pages • 40 minutes read
William ShakespeareA modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Lines 1-4
The first quatrain announces the theme of beauty and its apparently enduring nature. The speaker’s statement that his friend “never can be old” (Line 1) because he looks the same now as he did when they first met three years ago is, however, a subjective statement. This is suggested by the first phrase, “To me” (Line 1) and also by the word “seems” in the phrase “seems your beauty still” (Line 3). In other words, the statement may not in fact be the case, and this will become more apparent in the later part of the sonnet, which makes clear that beauty, like all things, is subject to time and change.
The phrase “your eye I eyed” in Line 2 may sound awkward to modern ears and is sometimes seen as a flaw in the poem, although according to Stephen Booth in his commentary on “Sonnet 104” in his book Shakespeare’s Sonnets (Yale University Press, 1977, p. 333), readers in William Shakespeare’s time would not have seen it in that way. Booth notes that to a modern reader, “eye” used as a verb (“I eyed”) has connotations of “to peer at inquisitively” or “to leer.
By William Shakespeare
All's Well That Ends Well
William Shakespeare
A Midsummer Night's Dream
William Shakespeare
Antony and Cleopatra
William Shakespeare
As You Like It
William Shakespeare
Coriolanus
William Shakespeare
Cymbeline
William Shakespeare
Hamlet
William Shakespeare
Henry IV, Part 1
William Shakespeare
Henry IV, Part 2
William Shakespeare
Henry V
William Shakespeare
Henry VIII
William Shakespeare
Henry VI, Part 1
William Shakespeare
Henry VI, Part 3
William Shakespeare
Julius Caesar
William Shakespeare
King John
William Shakespeare
King Lear
William Shakespeare
Love's Labour's Lost
William Shakespeare
Macbeth
William Shakespeare
Measure For Measure
William Shakespeare
Much Ado About Nothing
William Shakespeare