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The Symbolic Meanings of Roses in Shakespeare’s Sonnets
DONG Yuping
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DOI:10.17265/1539-8072/2020.08.003
University of Shanghai for Science and Technology, Shanghai, China
The paper explores the symbolic meanings of roses in Shakespeare’s sonnets. In Shakespeare’s 154 sonnets, the rose imagery is placed in a dominant position among all the other flower imagery. In general, rose is one of the most conventional images in the sonnet. But in addition to the traditional symbol of beauty and love, rose in the sonnet shows more symbolic meanings: a symbol of vitality and reproduction, a symbol of friendship and devotion, and a symbol of fidelity and immortality. The symbolic rose, to a great extent, reflects the Renaissance humanist Shakespeare’s values and ideals of humanism. By successfully employing the rose imagery, Shakespeare extols the virtues of reproduction, displays his faith in the immortality of his verse, and conveys the message of appreciating and cherishing the beauty, goodness, and truth.
rose, sonnet, beauty, reproduction, immortality
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