Abstract

Shakespeare's Sonnets is the title of a collection of 154 sonnets accredited to William Shakespeare which cover themes such as the passage of time, love, beauty and mortality. 

Classical Chinese poetry are being played off the strict demands of the meter, the rhyme, the rules in lexical devices as well as the sonnets. From Classical Chinese poetry theory and the system of appreciation, there are three basic techniques of expression, the Narration, the Comparison and the Sub-raise (Mao’s poetic preface, the preface to the Book of Songs ), and also the essential requests for Chinese classical poem.

This thesis consist five part, an introduction, three chapters, a conclusion. 

The introduction gives the background of this thesis, main survey of Shakespeare’s sonnet, including the rhyme, the sequence, the structure, etc.

Three chapters are three parts of analysis and appreciation from the view of Classical Chinese Literary Criticism :the Narration (Fu), the Comparison (Bi) and the Sub-raise (Xing). With the typical example of Chinese poetry (The book of Songs), three chapters of this thesis analysis and appreciation the sonnet are as follow: Narration, two aspects: narrating in detail and narrating in straightforward; Comparison, focus on the lexical device, such as, metaphor, similar, metonymy and others; Sub-rasise, it happens between the “images” and the “feelings”, the “images” are projected with the “similarities”, and implicated with the “contiguity”, and the Sub-raise is appreciated as those four aspects (above). In this part, three questions has been discussed:

(1) From the view of Chinese Literary Criticism, how does the narration use in Shakespeare’s sonnets ?

(2) Is there some preference in comparison use for Shakespeare, and what is the similarities and difficulties with Chinese style?

(3) Does Shakespeare used the sub-raise(Xing) in sonnet? If yes, what is the difference with Chinese poetry.

The last part is the conclusion. The whole thesis is summarized with the content and analyzed the above problems .Furthermore, the author draw the following conclusion: In narration part, sonnets are well-organized in narration(from narrating in detail and straightforward). Shakespeare are also skilled in comparison, with the favored devices: metaphor and metonymy. Sub-raise are applied in sonnets, but different from Chinese poetry with the similarities and contiguity of images.

According the analysis and appreciation,the author express the reflection of new terms of appreciation on sonnets and the view of aesthetic values. But it is only an attempt to be made and welcome to improvement and discussion 

Key words: Sonnets, Shakespeare, the narration, the comparison, the sub-raise, appreciation 

Contents

Abstract

摘  要

1. Introduction-1

1.1 Background of the Study-1

 1.11 The Sonnet-2

 1.12 Shakespeare’s sonnets  -2

1.2 Theoretical Basis-2

 1.21 English Sonnet ( Form, Theme, Features)-3

 1.22 Three Terms in Classical Chinese Literary Criticism  -3

2. Literature Review-4

2.1 Overseas Study-3

2.2 Domestic Study-6

2.3 Summary-7

2.31 Three Questions.8

3. Analysis &Appreciation-10

3.1 Narration (Fu ) -10

3.11 In Datail10

3.12 In Straightforward10

3.2 Comparison (Bi ) -10

3.21 Metaphor11

3.22 Simile.10

3.23 Others.11

3.3 Sub-raise (Xing ) -12

3.31The Image.13

3.32The Feeling 13

3.33The Similarity.14

3.34 The Contiguity.14

4. Conclusion-15

  4.1 The Answers of Three Questions.15

  4.2 The Summary.15

References-16