Sample Outline: Mine

Emily Rock

English I Honors

29 May 2014

I.                     Introduction: There are no lines from William Shakespeare’s canon more immortal than those opening Sonnet 18.  “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day…” begins as an ode to a near-perfect love and serves to end the burdens of the earlier sonnets in the cycle.  It is from the conventions of this early sonnet that all future sonnets are compared; and although the ideals of beauty are later speared in Sonnet 130(My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun…”), it is Shakespeare’s first examination of outer beauty, a concept that he toys with during the entire cycle.  Sonnet 18 stands not only as a testament to the epitome of Renaissance beauty, but as a cautionary tale for wayward youths.

II.                  Sonnet 18 is really about surface love, not real love.

A.       Vendler calls it “innocuous, dulcet, light.”

B.      Love is too deep for elaboration?

C.      Real love cannot be expressed in 14 lines, but immortalization can be achieved.

III.                The theme of Nature lends itself to the ideas of reproduction

A.       Vendler discusses the idea of ‘necessity’ in the sonnet.

B.      Reminders of death, particularly with image of ‘sun.’

C.      Beauty will die first, and then the Young Man is worthless.

IV.                Sonnet 18 is , after all, a sonnet of conventions.

A.       Shakespeare takes convention and trumps them

B.      The beloved is too beautiful even for convention—beyond flattery.

C.      This pedestal foreshadows that eventual death of the relationship

D.      In the end, it is impossible to love someone so revered/perfect.(Vendler—“denigrate the perfect metaphor.”)

So that’s that.  Basically, I outlined my paper, complete with details from my research in a format that will make it quite easy to complete my rough draft.  This is due on MONDAY.  <3