William Shakespeare's view of the passage of time seems consistently focused on its most destructive effects on the body. He obsesses over this inescapable force throughout many of his sonnets, describing the passage of time with almost exclusively negative terminology. He echoes the same ideal in "Sonnet 12: When I Count the Clock That Tells the Time", using a sequence of ironic personifications and metonymic symbols to illustrate the inevitability of time and, ultimately, its only imaginable obstacle to having children. no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get an Original Essay The main function of the personifications in this sonnet is to emphasize the elements of death. Shakespeare breathes life into them only to figuratively kill them shortly after. It effectively demonstrates the ravages of the inevitable passage of time, as shown in this juxtaposition: “When I count the clock that tells the time / and I see the brave day sinking into the hideous night” (1-2). Here, the clock “tells” the time almost provocatively, in a sense mocking the “brave” day which must inevitably acquiesce to the passage of time, thus falling “into a hideous night.” This also brings about a sense of irony, in that sunsets are usually beautifully depicted, while this one is disgusting. Later personifications use a similar technique, taking something generally viewed positively and depicting it as becoming increasingly listless and unfavorable with the passage of time. The speaker describes the otherwise pleasant "green of summer" (7) as inevitably being "all girt with wreaths / worn on beer with white bristling beards" (7-8), granting the summer season the possibility of physically dying over time. by representing him as a dying old man through the coffin and the beard. This provides a second example of irony, where an otherwise productive and celebratory grain harvest period is juxtaposed with the unappealing facets of aging, further portraying the gravity of time. It also provides a contrast of colors, as the vivid “green” of summer clashes with the achromatic and abrasive “white bristling beard,” further confirming the undesirable effects produced by the passage of time. The series of ironic personifications observed in the first two quatrains of the sonnet are systematically presented in this positive light only to succumb to death shortly afterwards, like the "high trees" (5) becoming "barren of leaves, which once, at because of the heat, formed their canopy. the herd” (5-6). The speaker makes his point clearly by demonstrating the devastation of time, and until the sonnet's final verse, he offers little comfort in avoiding it. In the sonnet's final piece of personification, the narrator chooses that "nothing against the scythe of Time can do defense/save the race, to brave it when it takes you hence" (13-14), suggesting that the only way to stay alive despite time is to have children to live in your place. The sonnet also uses the literary trope of metonymy to effectively emphasize aspects of death due to the passage of time. The aforementioned "beer" and "white, bristling beard" (7-8) serve as apt metonymic symbols in their equation with the much larger themes of death and aging, transcending more obvious irony and personification to function at a third rhetorical level. The speaker's implementation of this type of symbol., 1961.