William Shakespeare (1564 – 1616) wrote many works. His top dramatic works are: Romeo and Juliet (1595), Hamlet (1601), Othello (1604) etc. Two years after the edition of the Sonnets we can see his anger in an epilogue from The Tempest (1611):
Now my charms are all o´erthrown,
And what strength I have´s mine own,
Which is most faint… .
Odvrhol som všetky taje,
Mám len vlastnú silu – tá je
Stokrát slabšia…
But when "his own strength", of which fruit are Sonnets, is hundred times weaker than the poetic fantasy, from which originated plays, it was gigantic power.
Ján Vilikovský wrote: "The poetic grandeur of Shakespeare is coming from that he can interpose us his experience with irresistible insistency and with conviction."
Shakespeare´s Sonnets were published without the author´s consent in 1609. Theye were written probably between 1594 and 1602. Their secret is still unsolved in spite of tremendous efforts of acute and erudite criticism. It is still uncertain whether they should be regarded as a poetical record of Shakespeare´s actual experience, or as his tribute to the prevailing fashion of sonnet-writing. There are 154 Shakespeare´s sonnets. Though, however, we may never know who Shakespeare´s mistress, the mysterious "dark Lady", that is mentioned in the second part of the sonnets, or his young and noble patron and friend, to whom are devoted the first 126 sonnets, or his rival poet, were, the intrinsic beauty of these lyrical effusions of the great dramatist is unsurpassed and eternal. From every sonnet is trickling some poetic sap – every sonnet shows that it is written from something that happened at first in the poet´s opulent life. Their form is that of the majority of Elizabethan sonnets, namely 14 lines arranged in three quatrains and one couplet which rounds up the theme or the principal idea. The form is less expert than the Petrarchan sonnet, but its looseness is redeemed by the infinite care with which Shakespeare caresses words and sounds.
Shakespeare´s sonnets "are talking with each other", once they are envolving, on the other side they are contradicting each other. The dominant theme of the whole cycle is the relationship me and you - and the rhyme me/thee.

There are also repeating rhymes, eg: see/thee, sight/night, old/cold, heart/part etc. Sometimes we can find the same rhyme in one sonnet or there is one word that rhymes twice in the sonnet, although the rhymes are different. The standard Shakespeare´s poetic form is fourteen lines sonnet, written in ten- or eleven-syllabical blankverses. Between 154 sonnets, that create the Shakespeare´s collection, are only three that deviate from the standard form. The sonnet 99 has fifteen verses, the sonnet 126 has only twelve – and the sonnet 145 is not written in blanverses, its verse is shorter of two syllables. In one verse before the last one in the sonnet 145 of the original is not translated the allusion. The experts have come to conclusion that this sonnet is devoted to the poet´s wife, whose primary surname had been Hathaway. From that and from the eightsyllabic verse the have come to conclusion that it can be the first Shakespeare´s sonnet.
The next feature of Shakespeare´s Sonnets is their theatrical one. They all appeal to be snatched from dramatical situations - they are like emergently spoken by some figure at the scene and speaking it to another figure. This diction does not need protraction because it has many indications and suppressions, what means the saving of the syllables. Shakespeare´s superiority over his contemporaries and over most later poets lies in the extreme variety of talents, in his equa mastery of the most diverse kinds of poetry. He is equally excellent in comedy and tragedy, in the sentimental and the burlesque, lyrical fantasy and character-study, portraits of men and of women. The power of creating immensely varied characters and endowing them all with life was abnormally developed in him. His characters, whether good or bad, historical or fictitious, have an unfailing humanity. He was as much a creator of human beings as Nature herself. His art is so subtle that many critics have declared him to be a natural genius, working unconsciously. 2.

Expressive Means and Stylistic Devices
PHONETIC EXPRESSIVE MEANS AND STYLISTIC DEVICES
- Onomatopeia: ---
- Alliteration: Devouring Time, blunt thou the lion´s paws,
Wilt thou, whose will is large and spacious,
- Rhyme: - Full rhyme: in the sonnet II: brow/now, field/held, use/excuse, mine/thine, old/cold; in the sonnet IX: life/wife, weep/keep, behind/mind, spend/end, sits/commits; in the sonnet XIX: paws/jaws, fleets/sweets, Time/crime, wrong/young; in the sonnet CXXXV: Will/still, spacious/gracious, thine/shine, store/more, kill/Will.
- Encomplete rhyme: - vowel rhyme: lies/eyes, days/praise, eye/die
- consonant rhyme: field/held, old/cold,
behind/mind, spend/end, sits/commits, still/will/kill
- eye rhyme: brood/blood
- eternal rhyme: ---
- Rhythm: - Rhythm in a verse or in a prose is intentional repetition of systematically arranged sonic elements. The rhythm is a means that we mostly use in verse. The rhythm of the verse is formed by sonic elements,eg: stress, the length of the syllables etc. This is called prosodic system. As we have already mentioned, Shakespeare wrote his sonnet in blankvers. Similar to blankverse is alexandrian. These belongs to tonic prosodic system.

LEXICAL EXPRESSIVE MEANS AND STYLISTIC DEVICES
- Metaphor: And dig deep trenches in thy beauty´s field, (wrinckles in his forehead)
And burn the long-lived phoenix in her blood;
The world will be thy widow and still weep,
draw no lines there with thine antique pen
- Metonymy: - pars pro toto: Shall sum my count, and make my old excuse,"
- totum pro parte: ---
- singularis pro plurali: ---
- Irony: makeless wife,
And burn the long-lived phoenix in her blood;
- Polysemy: ---
- Zeugma: ---
- Pun: ---
- Interjections and exclamatory words: Ah! If thou issueless shalt hap to die,
O, carve not with thy hours my love´s fair brow,
- Epithet: lusty days, deep-sunken eyes, an all-eating shame, thriftless praise, fair
child, single life, a makeless wife, murderous shame, devouring Time, the
fierce tiger´s jaws, the long-lived phoenix, swift-footed Time, the wide
world, heinous crime, antique pen, succeeding men, old Time
- Oxymoron: ---
- Simile: ---
- comparison: Make glad and sorry seasons as thou fleets,
- Periphrases: deep trenches = wrinckles
- Euphemism: *When forty winters shall besiege thy brow,
- when you are forty years old and you have experienced many problems
*And dig deep trenches in thy beauty´s field,
- and you have wrinckles in your forehead
- Hyperbole: deep-sunken eyes, an all-eating shame, a makeless wife, murderous
shame, devouring Time, the fierce tiger´s jaws, swift-footed Time, heinous
crime
- Litotes: ---
- Cliché: devouring Time, the lion´s paws, the fierce tiger´s jaws, swift-footed Time,
heinous crime
- Proverbs and Sayings: ---
- Epigrams: ---
- Quotations: ---
- Allusions: And burn the long-lived phoenix in her blood;

SYNTACTIC EXPRESSIVE MEANS AND STYLISTIC DEVICES
- Aposiopesis: ---
- Ellipsis: ---
- Fronting: Will be a tatter´d weed, of small worth held. = A tatter´d weed will be, of small worth held.
- Inversion: ---
- Detached Construction: ---
- Parenthesis: ---
- Repetition: * Will be a tatter´d weed, of small worth held. –pheonasm ;
* The world will wail thee like a makeless wife;
The world will be thy widow and still weep, ;
* The world will be thy widow and still weep,
That thou no form of thee hast left behind, - pheonasm ;
*In the sonnet CXXXV is very often used a word "WILL". We are not
sure about the translation of this word. The possible means:
1) vôľa,
2) prianie,
3) an auxiliary verb "will"-to express the future tense
4) penis, vagína (usual Elizabethian slang)
5) an abbreviation of the name William (it is Shakespeare´s name)
Eg: So thou, being rich in Will, add to thy Will
One will of mine, to make thy large Will more.
- Enumeration: Devouring Time, blunt thou the lion´s paws,
And make the earth devour her own sweet brood;
Pluck the keen teeth from the fierce tiger´s jaws,
And burn the long-lived phoenix in her blood;
- Suspense: *This were to be new made when thou art old,
And see thy blood warm when thou feel´st it cold.
* Yet do thy worst, old Time! Despite thy wrong,
My love shall in my verse ever live young.
* Let no unkind, no fair bessechers kill;
Think all but one, and me in that one Will.
- Rhetorical question: *Is it for fear to wet a widow´s eye
That thou consums´t thyself in single life?
* Wilt thou, whose will is large and spacious,
Not once vouchsafe to hide my will in thine?
* Shall will in others seem right gracious,
And in my will no fair acceptance shine?

3.

Stylistic Classification of the English Vocabulary
LITERARY VOCABULARY
- Terms: ---
- Common Literary Vocabulary: ---
- Poetic Words: - Archaic Words:- obsolescent words:
thy/thine = your, thou/thee = you, thyself = yourself;
- obsolete words:
couldst, hast = could- 2nd person singular pres st;
wilt, art = will – 2nd person singular pres t;
doth, hath = 3rd person singular pres th;
fair = beautiful; shalt = should; hap = chance; boot = in addition;
- Barbarisms: ---
- Nonce-words: ---

NEUTRAL VOCABULARY
Colloquial Neutral Literary
universe world Cosmos
kid Child infant
mate husband consort
fright fear Solicitude
finish end termination

COLLOQUIAL VOCABULARY
- Jargon: ---
- Professionalisms: ---
- Dialectal words: ---
- Vulgar words: ---
- Slang: ---

4. Peculiarities and Comments on Translation

MORPHOLOGICAL PECULIARITIES
- Contracted form: ---
- The usage of "don´t": ---
- The usage of "he" instead of "him": ---
- The usage of "ain´t" instead of "am not", "isn´t", "aren´t": ---
- The usage of "them" instad of "these":---

LEXICAL PECULIARITIES
- The usage of intensifiers: ---
- The usage of "empty words": ---

SYNTACTICAL PECULIARITIES
- The ommition of parts of utterance:---
- The intonation questions: ---
- Unfinished sentences:---
- Tautological subject: ---
- Linking sentences with "and": *When forty winters shall besiege thy brow,
And dig deep trenches in thy beauty´s field,
*This were to be new made when thou art old,
And see thy blood warm when thou feel´st it cold.
*But beauty´s waste hath in the world an end,
And kept unus´d, the user so destroys it.
*Devouring Time, blunt thou the lion´s paws,
And make the earth devour her own sweet brood;
*Pluck the keen teeth from the fierce tiger´s jaws,
And burn the long-lived phoenix in her blood;
*Make glad and sorry seasons as thou fleets,
And do whate´er thou wilt, swift-footed Time,
Etc.

COMMENTS ON TRANSLATION
Shakespeare´s style of writing is very difficult. Some native speakers have problems to understand Shakespeare´s works. It is also very difficult for us to read and understand the Sonnets. There are many archaic words and it is written in the blankverse. The translation of the Sonnets had to be hard work for Ľubomík Feldek, whose translation we have worked with. We would not be able to make the translation like his one. We would be only able to translate it, but not to put it into blankverse and to preserve the ideas of the sonnets.

We would like to comment the sonnet CXXXV. We have already mentioned that the poet used the word "WILL" and there were many translation of this word in that period. The translator abides by "Will" with capital letter is the abbreviation of the name William. When there is "will" he translates it in various words. In the translated Sonnets there are not as many stylistic devices and expressive means as in the original. We really admire the capabilities of all the translators who are able to translate any of Shakespeare´s works or any of the old works. We hope that we will be after some time also able to do it.

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Definition of Style - Stylistics