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Gomes 2
Mariam Gomes
Professor
Subject
June 26, 2019
Shapes and Ingredients of Love
    The current paper presents an analysis of two romantic poems; William Shakespeare's “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day”, and Adrienne Rich’s “My mouth hovers across your breasts”. It is interesting to study these poems alongside each other given the vast three centuries difference between the poets’ worldly existence. Shakespeare was born in 1564 and died in 1616 while Rich was born in 1929 and died in 2012. This huge gap can be an element of study attempting to analyze if the concept of love has changed over the centuries. In all, the purpose of this analysis is to compare, contrast and discuss the contents, its surrounding ambience and implications in depth.
    The dominant theme of the two poems is love. But how do the poets portray and define love in each of these? At the outset, Shakespeare’s poem describes the beauty of the lady as a matchless one; far beyond the beauty of summer which also fades in time. He is certain of the long-lasting and even almost eternal existence of his beloved since she will continue to exist even after death through his writing. The poet brings out a strong command and surety of the fact that although fair and mighty things shall pass away, her existence shall endure. Here the beauty of the lady concerns the abstract form and not completely physical or the concrete beauty. While looking at Rich’s poem, the narrator overtly describes the...