What’s so different between Shakespeare and Moss?
written by Meita Annisa Nurhutami
The poem entitled ‘Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?’ was first written by William Shakespeare on his Sonnet number 18 in 1609. About 3 Centuries later, a writer, Howard Moss, arose and wrote a poem which has the same title with Shakespeare’s Sonnet 18. Moss’ poem ‘Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?’ was written in 1976. The poem are as follows:
“Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?”
Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer’s lease hath all too short a date:
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimm’d;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance, or nature’s changing course, untrimm’d;
But thy eternal summer shall not fade,
Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest;
Nor shall Death brag thou wander’st in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou growest;
So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.
William Shaksepeare (1564 - 1616) (1)
Shall I Compare Thee to A Summer’s Day?
Who says you’re like one of the dog days?
You’re nicer. And better.
Even in May, the weather can be gray,
And a summer sub-let doesn’t last forever.
Sometimes the sun’s too hot;
Sometimes it is not.
Who can stay young forever?
People break their necks or just drop dead!
But you? Never!
If there’s just one condensed reader left
Who can figure out the abridged alphabet,
After you’re dead and gone,
In this poem you’ll live on!
Howard Moss (1922-1987) (2)
Even both poems are similar in terms of the title and theme of its content though it also has some differences based on the language used, what the writer really concern on the form of the poem, and the writer’s attitude towards the issue in the poem.
In his version, Shakespeare uses figurative language to serves expressive words in the poem. The metaphorical language, for example in the second line ‘Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May’, dominates the whole of the poem. He formulates the poem with some complex metaphor so the reader finds that the works sounds more high-end and not easy to understand. While Howard Moss in his poem simplified the connotation found in Shakespeare’s poem. For example, he simplify the expression in Shakespeare’s version in the fourth line into ‘Even in May, the weather can be gray’. He offered a simple and an easy to understand language in his version so the meaning of the poem can be straightforwardly grasped by the reader.
Shakespeare really pays his attention on the rhyme pattern in every line in his Sonnet XVIII. He carefully chooses the words which the pattern fits to other words and also which has well appropriate connotative meaning. In Sonnet XVII, the rhyme pattern is a-b-a-b, for example line 1 and line 3 ‘…. day?’ , ‘…May’ which has the same sound pattern. Moss seems did not really care on the pattern and the ‘beauty’ of the words because there is no exact same rhyme pattern in his version. The important thing that he considers is the easiness interpretation of the works.
The writer’s focus on the form of poem implicitly shows their attitude towards the issue in the poem. Shakespeare treats the issue of praising someone who is really beloved hyperbolic to enchant the object and the reader. He plays the beauty of words including simile and things to make the poem more attractive and to be able to be imagined by the audience. Because of the purpose, Moss did treat the issue more realistic than Shakespeare. He wants the reader get to his point based on the realistic comparison.
Both writer has a quite significant differences in terms of the language used, what they really concern on the form of the works, also their attitudes. The difference is well influenced by the time period when they write the works. Shakespeare was born on 1564, in his period, the rules and principles on literary works writing especially in poetry is really strict so it influence the way he writes. It also occurred in Moss’s time period in twentieth century when people liberates the way their express a thing especially in the way they write a literary works.
1) Retrieved from http://www.albionmich.com/inspiration/shallicompare.html
2) Retrieved from http://www.ingilish.com/poems.htm
