Both the poem and the play share a common theme which is about the sufferings of life. For example in Hamlet the first line is “To be or not to be, that is the question.” Hamlet is contemplating the choice of living or to kill himself, because of all the suffering he is feeling. It is similar to “On my First Son” because the author talks about the suffering of the loss of his son as he says “My sin was too much hope of thee.” The poems share themes but are based on similar context to do with both authors sons. The background of Shakespeare is that he had a son which he lost early on in his life and he based the book on “Hamlet” who had a similar name to his son. Ben Johnson is talking about the death of his young son, who has also caused him a lot of suffering.
The poems show suffering because of the death of loved ones. However, in Hamlets soliloquy he is in agony because of the murder of his father, and the soliloquy has a very dark tone. “To suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune” is one of the lines Hamlet uses to describe his suffering. The metaphorical language compares his suffering to being like slings and arrows which connote projectile weapons. Hamlet describes his fate as “outrageous fortune”, so his fate is so shocking and bad. It suggests Hamlet feels helpless and he cannot do anything about it. This is similar to Ben Johnson’s language features as he personifies the world as having “Soon scap’d the worlds rage,” where he describes the world as being evil. But in “On my First Son” Ben Johnson uses a softer tone when describing his suffering such as “For why should man lament the state he should envy? To have soon scap’d world’s and flesh’s rage.” Ben Johnson is expressing his grief as being a state which he should envy as his son escaped the worlds suffering and the pain the world would have caused him. Also, the line “As what he loves may never like too much” shows that he thinks he could never love his son too much, and he promises to not love anything as much as his son. The two texts create different semantic fields with their choice of words as Hamlet uses words like “Die, whip, arrow, outrageous and bodkin” compared to “Joy, love, soft and peace”. The different selections of vocabulary shows how the authors feel towards the death they have suffered. Hamlet is angry as his father was killed by his uncle who has now married his mother, it is a very evil act. Ben Johnson lost his son at the age of seven and even though he experiences grief, he also knows that his son escaped the worlds “rage” and lived a happy life.
Iambic pentameter is used to communicate the language to the reader in both texts. The feature makes them both be read with fluency and are in an organised structure. The use of iambic pentameter can symbolise fate and that everything is bound to happen, as this is shown by the characters or author speaking with pattern and constantly saying each line with ten syllables. There is nothing they can do about their suffering as it is bound by fate and it is supposed to happen, nobody has the power to stop it.
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