Shakespeare s Sonnet 12 ( 1609 ) And George Herbert s...

This essay will address the theme of death in Shakespeare’s Sonnet 12 (1609) and George Herbert’s poem Virtue (1633). Both Shakespeare and Herbert explore notions of death in their poems, in terms of the tension between the psychical and the spiritual in a religious context. However, where they differ is that Shakespeare places emphasis on the importance of the corporeal, and of what is left behind on earth after death. In contrast, Herbert focuses on the impermanence of the physical, instead advocating a focus on the eternal life of the soul in heaven. In the late 16th and early 17th century, London was ravaged by the Black Death, causing many people to ruminate on death and their mortality. Shakespeare was arguably affected also, indeed â€Å"death as a concept is a reoccurring theme within Shakespeare’s work; prevalent through sonnets, tragedies and medieval morality plays through the character of Death† (Courtney, 1995). Shakespeare’s â€Å"Sonnet 12†explores the physicality of death, by describing the physicality and impermanence of the natural world. In the first eight lines this is achieved in a traditional blazon format, perhaps to emphasise the physicality of earthly life. The speaker ruminates on the temporality of life through the image of death and decay and concludes that the only way in which to ensure ‘immortality’ is through procreation and continuation of the family line, so that he may not be forgotten after death. In the opening line, the speaker meditates on