Comparing Texts Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Comparing Texts - Essay workoutThe ways in which language is utilize to discover its subjective and illusionary nature is different when employed in poetry, plays or novels. Time and intended audience also become factors in how authors choose to seek this element of language. By comparing the social function of language in Shakespeares Sonnet 18 and Pirandellos Six Characters in Search of an Author -- both intended for mature, educated audiences -- to the more modern novel Harry tinker and the Philosophers Stone by J.K. Rowling intended for a less mature, less educated audience, it is possible to see how lawfulness is questioned through language. Shakespeares tone in Sonnet 18 is playful and ironic as he subtly drudges fun at the Romantic language that was then informing literature. He uses formalized constructions to take up an idealized sense of his female character consistent with the concepts considered important by the Romantics, Shall I comparison thee to a summers day, / Thou art more lovely and more temperate (Shakespeare, 1969 1456/1-2). However, he never in truth tells his audience anything about this person. All the audience is permitted to know about her is that she exists, even if only in Shakespeares mind. This levity indoors the really formalized, academic poetic world was out of step with his contemporaries. Despite the levity, Shakespeare used a very formalized style, informed by the newly introduced Italian sonnet style but with a twist. Shakespeare sticks to the 14 line structure and the iambic pentameter expected for a sonnet, but he follows his own rhyme evasion that blends more comfortably with the English language (Furniss & Bach, 2007 579, 581, 593). This scheme follows an abab cdcd efef gg pattern. It gave him greater flexibility in matching the rhyme. however then, he found it necessary to stretch the rhyme a bit, as in lines 9-12 But thy everlasting summer shall not fade, / Nor lose possession of that fair thou owst / Nor shall death brag thou departst in his shade, / When in eternal lines to time thou growst. Combined with the relaxed approach taken by his tone, the formal structure of the poem makes it difficult for a modern audience to understand the joke. Through his use of language, Shakespeare brings his subject down from Romantic idealism to the everyday world of the common man. While Shakespeare mentions that Sometimes also hot the eye of heaven shines, / And often is his gold complexion dimmed (5-6), giving the scene a sense of beauty, he keeps his subject on the level of the real by adding the twist of providing his readers with a translation befitting just about any char. Through tone, style and poetic devices such as imagery, Shakespeare manages to poke some fun at the traditional academic approach to poetry by bringing in more common language usage. Shakespeares woman, because of his tone, style and poetic devices, flashes in our minds as a woman of high quality, substance and perhap s even nobility, but still a living, breathing, human woman. In the alike(p) way that Shakespeare uses figurative language to both expose and treat his female subject, Pirandello uses meta-theatre to both expose and hide his characters in Six Characters in Search of an Author. From the beginning, it seems these characters are fully exposed to the audience. There are particularised stage directions provided ensuring that the audience is aware there are no theatrical tricks being employed. Directions at the source of Act I specify the stage should be half dark, and empty, so that from the beginning the public may have the impression of an impromptu performance. The Characters begin to demonstrate their