Time: A Major Thematic Study of Shakespeare’s Sonnets

Abstract

Shakespeare wrote 154 sonnets during all his life. These sonnets are actually the thematic expression of his unique experience and thinking of time. Shakespeare not only describes time's ruthless consumption of beauty and love, but also displays that he has done all his efforts to surpass time and preserve immortality with two solutions, thus the most outstanding result of his philosophical thinking of time is that his bionomy and poetics comes into being.The word "time" is directly used about 86 times in the sonnets, among which most occurs in the capitalized form "Time" [1]. Moreover, some words showing time concept can be frequently found in Shakespeare's sonnets: "