Attempt a critical analysis of Shakespeare's sonnet 19. Briefly explain why it is looked upon as a 'procreation sonnet'.

Attempt a critical analysis of Shakespeare's sonnet 19. Briefly explain why it is looked upon as a 'procreation sonnet'.

The Procreation Sonnets of Shakespeare are grouped together because they all address the same young man, and all encourage him — with a variety of  themes and arguements — to marry and father children (hence 'procreation'). Sonnet 19 is considered by some to be the final sonnet of the initial procreation sequence. The sonnet addresses time directly as it allows time its great power to destroy all things in nature, but the poem forbids time to erode the young man's fair appearance. The poem casts time in the role of a poet holding an “antique pen”. The theme is redemption, through poetry, of time's inevitable decay. Though there is compunction in the implication that the young man himself will not survive time’s effects, because redemption brought by the granting of everlasting youth is not actual, but rather ideal or poetic.

In his Sonnet 19, Shakespeare presents the timeless theme of Time’s mutability. As the lover apostrophizes Time, one might expect him to address “old Time” as inconstant, for such an epithet implies time’s changeability. But inconstant also suggests capricious, and the lover finds time more grave than whimsical in its alterations.

With the epithet “devouring” he addresses a greedy, ravenous hunger, a Time that is wastefully destructive. Conceding to Time its wrongs, the lover at first appears to encourage Time to satisfy its insatiable appetite. Indeed, he familiarly addresses Time as “thou” as he commands it harshly to “blunt, n “make the earth devour, n “pluck,” and “burn.” Not only are the verbs “blunt,n npluck,” and “burn” linked by assonance, but also by their plosive initial consonants, so that the Lover’s orders sound off Time’s destructiveness as well. Each line offers a different image of Time at work: on the lion, the earth, the tiger, the phoenix-bird. Time is indiscriminate in its devouring. In the second quatrain, the lover grants to Time its own will: “And do whate’er thou wilt, swift-footed Time,” acknowledging priorly that in its fleet passage Time does “Make glad and sorry seasons. n For the first time one sees Time in other than a destructive capacity–in its cyclical change of seasons, some Time does “make glad” with blooming sweets.....................................................................................

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