Search

The Immortalization of the Humanist Insights Poeticized in Shakespeare’s Sonnet 18

Author(s)

Jun Luo*, Yong Zhang

Affiliation(s)

School of Foreign Languages, Zhaotong University, Zhaotong, China *Corresponding Author

Abstract

As indicated clearly in existing literatures pertaining to the interpretation of Shakespearean sonnets, the interpretations of those sonnets are characterized with the thematic, formulaic or structural analyses of either the sequential or entire sonnets titled in Shakespeare’s Sonnets (1609). However, there is no literature devoted to the essential interpretation of a singular sonnet them in a single article. The review of the existing literature published in latest five years has shown that the critical exploration of those sonnets focus most on the interpretation of sequential or entire sonnets in this poetic collection while least on the profound and overall exploration of a single one of them. Among the 154 sonnets collected in this poetic collection, Sonnet 18 is the one that has been quoted and mentioned most but analyzed least in current critical exploration of this collection. To put it in another way, it is pitiful that this sonnet is not interpreted singularly and deeply in details to identify its aesthetic and artistic values and virtues at present. Given the failure to achieve the this critical thoroughness in interpreting this sonnet, this article aims to dive into its profounder and perspicacious humanistic values and virtues to provide more crucial evidences for the immortalized humanist insights poeticized in elaborating the actual humanity, dignity and immortality of man in relevance to the rather close relationship between the immortalization of man just as what has happened to the character of this sonnet when he is faced with the fatal crisis of time and death. In ensuring the critical profundity and perspicacity in the overall elaboration of the authentic aesthetic and artistic virtues and values in this sonnet, this study will provide an analytical sample for the further and future interpretation of the undiscoverable virtues and values in each of the sonnets in this collection in reference to what has been contextualized socially and culturally in the early modern England.

Keywords

Immortality; Humanist Insights; Shakespeare; Sonnet 18

References

[1] Partner Jane. Poetry and Vision in Early Modern England. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018: 1-3. [2] Luis-Martínez Zenón. Poetic Theory and Practice in Early Modern Verse Unwritten Arts. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2023: 1-2. [3] Ahmed M. M. Yousof. Domestication versus Foreignization in the Translations of Shakespearean Sonnet Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer’s Day? into Arabic. Bulletin of The Faculty of Arts, 2020, 57 (2): 75. Doi 10.21608/bfa.2020.185728 [4] Basma Gamal Ebrahim Saleh, et al. Procedures Employed in Translating Culture-Specific Items in the Shakespearean Sonnet No. 18 by Mohammed F. Al Ghazi. Scientific Journal of the Faculty of Arts (JARTF), 2022, 47: 392. Doi 10.21608/jartf.2022.245865 [5]. Nadia Mousa Suleiman Al-Diab. A Systemic Functional Grammatical Analysis of two Translations of Shakespeare’s Sonnet (18). Egyptian Journal of Linguistics and Translation (EJLT), 2024, 12 (1): 1. Doi 10.21608/ejlt.2023.219927.1039 [6] Yimin Luo. The Topological Cosmological Body Poetics in Shakespeare’s Sonnet 18. Journal of Guangdong University of Foreign Studies, 2019, 5: 5. [7] Hasan Mariwan, Fouad Lavin. William Shakespeare’s “Sonnet 18” Revisited. Cross-Cultural Communication, 2021, 17(3): 21. Doi 10.3968/12181 [8] Thorsten Merse, Lotta König. “Compairing [sic] a Girl to a Summers Day is Gay”—Que(e)rying EFL Learners’ Engagement with Shakespeare’s Sonnet 18 and Contemporary YA Fiction 1. Revista Latinoamericana de Estudios Educativos (México), 2023, LIII (2): 135. Doi 10.48102/rlee.2023.53.2.559 [9] He Yuanhong. The Uniqueness and Innovation of Shakespeare’s Sonnets and Their Influence on Society: The Eighteenth Sonnet as an Example. Communications in Humanities Research, 2023, 3: 782. [10]Runsdorf James H. Wondrous Patterns: Spenser’s Hymne in Honour of Beautie and Shakespeare’s Sonnet 18. ANQ: A Quarterly Journal of Short Articles (Notes and Reviews), 2020, 35(1):1. Doi 10.1080/0895769X.2020.1740642 [11]Ralph Barton Perry. A Definition of the Humanities. The Meaning of the Humanities. Eds. Theodore Meyer Greene. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1940: 3–42. [12]Wright George Henrik Von. What is Humanism? Kansas: University of Kansas, 1976: 6-20. [13]Poole Randall A. The True Meaning of Humanism: Religion and Human Values. The Philosophy Journal, 2019, 12(1): 17–33. Doi 10.21146/2072-0726-2019-12-1-17-33 [14]Tolibovich Parpiyev Muxammadjon. The Philosophical Essence of Humanism in the Renaissance. Pubmedia Social Sciences and Humanities, 2025, 2(3): 1. Doi 10.47134/pssh.v2i3.357 [15]Irving Babbitt. Literature and the American College Essays in Defense of the Humanities. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1908: 9-10. [16]Douglas Bush. The Renaissance and English Humanism. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1939: 42. [17]Selznick Philip. A Humanist Science Values and Ideals in Social Inquiry. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2008: 31. [18]Pinn Anthony B. The Oxford Handbook of Humanism. Oxford: Oxford University, 2019: 33. [19]Catt Isaac E. On the Human in Human Dignity. Philosophies, 2024, 9(157): 1. Doi 10.3390/philosophies9050157 [20]Liu Lei. An Anchorage of the Humanistic Idealist Complex: On the Eighteenth Shakespearean Sonnet. Journal of Chongqing Jiaotong University, 2016, 16(2): 97. [21]Jones Mostyn W. The Roots of Imagination: A New Philosophy of Imagination, Construing Imagination as a Dynamic, Evolving Synergy of its Roots. PhD. Diss. the University of Manchester, 1994: 9. [22]Araki Michael. Polymathy: the Foundational Source of Creativity and Innovation. PhD. Diss. University of Louisville, 2025: 60. [23]György E. Szönyi. Broadening Horizons of Renaissance Humanism from the Antiquity to the New World. Primerjalna književnost (Ljubljana), 2018, 41(2): 5. [24]Moore Henrietta L. et al. Prosperity in the Twenty-First Century. London: UCL (University College London) Press, 2023: 2.