Peer Review 2

Link to Veronica’s Blog: https://veronicabliteratureblogs.wordpress.com/2020/04/02/blog-2-virtual-visit-to-the-state-library/

Thank you for your piece of writing Veronica! I really appreciated how you referenced Ben Johnson’s Preface and put it into perspective against your own knowledge and the art that was presented at the gallery in the Renaissance rooms. 

I would like to extend upon your idea of Shakespeare’s ability to create a “living line”, as this makes me think of Botticelli’s depiction of “Spring” created in 1480. His use of texture and intricacy to immortalise the beauty of nature I think also has the same quality of the living line. Moreover, as there are 138 different species of plans that have been identified in the painting illuminates the importance Renaissance artists held when portraying natural images of life. 

You described Shakespeare’s “living line” as his ability to create art that is still relevant today, and I would like to also use that metaphor and compare it to Sonnet 12.

This sonnet depicts humans’ vexation with the notion of time and the process of ageing. Shakespeare critiques humans inability to find the beauty in life in these times of transition, as seen in line 4 and 5 “And sable curls all silvered o’er with white, when lofty trees I see barren of leaves”. However, Shakespeare is able to find the beauty in his impending mortality and embrace death as a factor of life rather than an end. The rhyming couplet at the end of the poem; “And nothing against Time’s scythe can make defence save breed, to brave him when he takes thee hence”
The capitalisation of ‘Time’, ironically humanises Death, and the image of the decisive scythe that will end life is nothing to fret over, he says don’t defy its right, rather be brave and try to find the beauty in this time.