Jul 9, 2008
Essay examining the common theme in Sonnets 18, 19, and 20 as compared to Chaucer's Wife of Bath's Tale.
In Sonnet 18, Sonnet 19, and Sonnet 20, Shakespeare explores a common theme. While the stances which his narrator assumes toward it vary, in each of these verses there is an acknowledgement of the corrosive effects of time, age, and change upon women addressed as lovers; but there is also the recognition of a more constant value, an "inner beauty," lovers addressed, one that outweighs the physical ravages of experience. In the Prologue to the Wife of Bath's Tale as in the Wife's Tale itself, Geoffrey Chaucer works at a similar theme, for while the Wife displays a sensibility considerably...
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