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Love and Beauty

Courtney Wester

Sir Walter Raleigh and William Shakespeare lived within the same time period for
roughly 15 years, and during this time Queen Elizabeth l was ruling over England with a
Monarchy, Parliament, and a Privy Council. Shakespeare wrote many plays, poems, and sonnets
and often put on his plays for the Queen and her court. Shakespeares plays often reflected how
he felt about politics during that time, such as war, legitimate and illegitimate children, and
religion on the politics, and his sonnets were about love and sadness. Raleigh never wrote any
poems for the Queen, he did write a few poems about her. Many of Raleighs poems were
written about the New World and what he saw during his expeditions from present day Florida
to North Carolina.

Walter was born in south Devon England in 1554 and had 4 siblings, all which were
prominent during the reign of Elizabeth l and James l, his mother Catherine Champernowne was
the niece of Elizabeths governess. Raleigh was very protestant during the reign of the Roman
Catholic Queen Mary of England and found hatred toward the religion in his childhood due to
his father having to hid in a tower to avoid his execution. Once Queen Elizabeth came to rule he
was fast to prove his devotion to being a Protestant. Raleigh had returned to England in 1581
and was given a spot in Elizabeths court and quickly became a favorite due to him increasing
Protestant Churches in Ireland. He later became given a chance to colonize America, but he
personally never got the chance. In 1584 Elizabeth let Raleigh be a royal charter which let him
explore, colonize, and rule any land that were not already colonized by Christians with the
stipulation that he had to give one-fifth of all gold and silver that was mined on the land, but he
was only given seven years to do this. His second attempt to colonize land in 1587 was

successful under the governance of John White on Roanoke Island. Raleigh had become
unfavorable to the queen due to his secret marriage to him being secretly married to one of her
maids-in-honor, they were both imprisoned, but later bought his freedom and officially married
Bessy. After Elizabeths death in 1603 Raleigh was put in prison and given a death sentence, but
it was revoked in 1616 and he was allowed to lead an expedition, but when the expedition was a
failure his death sentence was reinstated. During Raleighs imprisonment he began to write
poems about the new world and Elizabeth.
In Raleighs Poem To my Queen he compares passion and love to floods and streams
and as a shallow stream babbles someone with shallow feeling would also babble and if you
have deep feelings, like a flood then you silent because of the great amount of love you feel,
he states that if you are shallow you are not worthy of the queens love, but if you are silent then
you have a deep love for her. He goes on to ask Queen Elizabeth not to misunderstand his
actions but underestimating his lover for her because he doesnt ask for compassion, but he
doesnt ask her to change because he is her advisor and personal guard and his duty is to her, and
he doesnt tell her how he feels because his duty keeps him from doing it. Raleigh sees
Elizabeth as a perfect woman which no man could deserve or have, but he doesnt complain
about it, he takes pride in how much he suffers and sees himself as being heroic by not telling her
that he loves her. Raleigh goes back to his analogy about how love is like floods and streams
and how his silence shows he is the best suitor for the queen. In the end of his poem he reiterates
that silence speaks louder than words when it comes to love, and he compares himself to a
beggar and says he should be pitied because he cannot speak and she should have mercy on him

for not declaring his love even though he has a deep lover for her and asked for her to understand
that his passion for her is greater than any other suitor she has, but he still chooses to suffer in
silence because of his duty to her.

William Shakespeare was born in Stratford-upon-Avon in 1564, but the specific date is
unknown. He is thought to have gone to school at Kings New School in Stratford a quarter mile
from his house. Shakespeare was 18 when he married Anne Hathaway who was 26. They had
three kids together, Susanna and twins, Hamnet and Judith. Hamnet died from known causes
August 1596, at 11 years old. After Shakespeares twins were born he disappeared without a
trace until he is mentioned in the London theater in 1592. It is unknown exactly when he started
writing, but many of his plays were being put on as early as 1592. Robert Greene made
Shakespeare well known in London by attacking him and his plays in the paper, and it is the
earliest mention of his work that has survived all these years. In 1594 his plays were only
performed by Lord Chamberlains Men which was a company owned by Shakespeare. A few of
his plays were published in 1594 and a few years later his name became a selling point. It has
been said that even after his retirement to Stratford he continued to write plays and poems and
even still worked as an actor in a few of his play. The Bubonic Plague spread throughout
London on 1609 which caused the London public theaters to repeatedly close down due to the
outbreak for over 60 months. After 1610 Shakespeare started writing fewer plays and nothing
was written after 1613, and his last three plays written have been thought to have been a
collaboration between him and John Fletcher who became the new Shakespeare in the
playwright of Kings Men. April 23, 1616 Shakespeare died with no explanation, a month

before he has signed his will saying he was in perfect health. John Ward who was the vicar of
Stratford said he had drank too hard and possibly died of a fever he had had contracted.
Shakespeares sonnet 18, Shall I compare thee to a summers day is very short, but he
doesnt need many words to descried how he feels about this woman and her beauty, he
describes how he feels and sees the woman he is writing this for and tells her that her beauty is
far more lovely than a summer day and that summer is too short and not all beauty will last
forever whether it was meant to happen or it was an accident, but her youth and beauty will
never fade and neither will her youth and she will never be claimed by death because
Shakespeare has already claimed her as his own and as long as there are people alive this poem
will be immortalized meaning she will also be immortalized as well as his love for her.

Both of these pieces of literature talk about love and beauty, Raleigh talks about how
much he loves Elizabeth and how beautiful she is just like Shakespeare does about the woman he
is talking about and says her beauty and his love for her will be everlasting. They both see the
woman they are talking about as too good for what they deserve and the utmost perfection in
every aspect.

The differences between these poems is Raleigh cannot express his love towards the
queen because he feels that the man who is silent about his feelings is the better suitor for the
queen and he comes off as angry, but he keeps his calm in hopes of the queen on day noticing
him, whereas Shakespeare is very descriptive and vocal about his love for this woman and he is

happy to be able to have such a beautiful woman and in the end he tells her their love will be
immortalized.

The two authors came from different very different backgrounds, one being born into the
high class, and one who was born to the lower class of this time, but both ended up being in the
favor of Queen Elizabeth. Both authors also wrote about love, but from different stands, Walter
Raleigh had the mentality that if you are silent about your love than you are the better choice and
your love is more abundant unlike William Shakespeare who was telling this woman how perfect
she was and her beauty would never diminish and would be immortal. They did still express the
same feelings toward the women they were writing about, but had two very different ways on
how they would express their feeling and love towards the other person.

Citations:

By the Same Token, Precisely by Using Ancient Rome as a Point of Comparison, Shakespeare Is Able
to Highlight the New Human Possibilities Opened up by the Development of Christianity. The Way
Christianity Alters the Terms of Politics, Especially by Introd. "GREAT THINKERS Shakespeare and
Politics." Shakespeare and Politics. N.p., n.d. Web. 19 Oct. 2016.

History.com Staff. "William Shakespeare." History.com. A&E Television Networks, 2011. Web. 19
Oct. 2016.

Sharnette, Heather. "William Shakespeare Biography." William Shakespeare. Self-Published, 1998.

Web. 19 Oct. 2016.

By Chance, or Nature's Changing Course, Untrimmed; "Analysis of Shakespeare's Sonnet

18." Analysis of Shakespeare's Sonnet 18 - Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer's Day. N.p., n.d. Web. 19 Oct.
2016.

History.com Staff. "Walter Raleigh." History.com. A&E Television Networks, 2009. Web. 19 Oct.
2016.

Vanderwarker. "Sonnets & Essays." GGCA English. N.p., n.d. Web. 19 Oct. 2016.

Damrosch, David, Kevin J. H. Dettmar, Susan J. Wolfson, and Peter J. Manning. The Longman
Anthology of British Literature. Boston: Longman, 2010. Print.