Shakespeare’s linked pair of Sonnets 15 and 16 describe a poet desperately searching for a way to preserve the life and youthful beauty of his love, a young man, throughout all of time. His hopeless determination to keep the young man spiritually or symbolically alive past his physical death portrays the two sonnets’ unifying theme — the inherently human desire to transcend time. Looking deeper, this then introduces the question: what does this desire do to our humanity? As shown by his growing resentment toward his own personification of time and increasingly passionate yet off-putting strategies to preserve his love’s youth, Shakespeare demonstrates that attempting to transcend time leads people to grow in bitterness and diminish in tranquility. To start, Shakespeare illustrates a clear aspiration to transcend time by showing frustration towards his love’s short stay on Earth in both sonnets. He demonstrates this by comparing men to plants in Sonnet 15: When I perceive that men as plants increase,/ Cheerèd and checked even by the selfsame sky,/ Vaunt in their youthful sap, at height decrease,/ And wear their brave state out of memory;/ Then the conceit [thought] of this inconstant stay/ Sets you most rich in youth before my sight,/ Where wasteful Time debateth with Decay/ To change your day of youth to sullied night (15.5-12) Shakespeare successfully uses a simile that compares the life cycle of men to that of plants to signify his love’s short-lasting youth that is seemingly taken for granted. He explains that as men and plants grow in beauty, they are both judged and marveled at by everything that perceives them. But as soon as both lifeforms become aware of this beauty, they begin to grow old, which causes it to vanish (and in Shakespeare's words) even as a memory. In short, this simile artistically explains that youth is sadly unappreciated and quickly lost after it reaches its peak. Shakespeare then illustrates dissatisfaction with this phenomenon by personifying time as wasteful, even capitalizing “Time” to refer to it as a being. He claims that Time works consciously to turn his love’s youth to “sullied night.” This not only suggests that time is working to rob the poet’s love of his youth, but it also hints that Shakespeare views it as an enemy. The combination of comparing men to plants and making time an enemy conveys that the poet wishes desperately to preserve their love's youth. Hence, it is proven that he desires to transcend time itself. This theme is alluded to more clearly, though, in Sonnet 16: “But wherefore do not you a mightier way/ Make war upon this bloody tyrant Time/ And Fortify yourself in your decay..?” (16.1-3). Here, the poet urges his love to preserve his youth in preparation for his physical deterioration or death by asking him to “fortify [himself] in [his] decay.” Calling for him to do this is exactly against the flow of time, as nobody can stay young forever. Likewise, the playwright is clearly distressed in this passage, as he once again personifies time as an enemy – in this case more explicitly as a “bloody tyrant.” This direct call for his love to preserve his youth mixed again with the villainous personification of time illustrates that the poet cannot stand seeing his love to grow old, and therefore his desire to transcend time. As proven here, Sonnets 15 and 16 are linked in their common theme of the desire to transcend time, but this idea argues much more than what is at the surface level. Shakespeare personifies time to better convey his wish to transcend it, as referring to it as a being signifies it acting as his literal enemy. However, this personification goes further to argue that having this desire inevitably leads to a growing bitterness within ourselves as more time passes. As Sonnet 16 comes chronologically after Sonnet 15, this idea is seen in the poet's growing resentment towards the personification of Time from one sonnet to the other. For example, in Sonnet 15, he calls time “wasteful” and that all are “in war with Time for love of you” (15.11, 13). This is compared to Sonnet 16, where he demands to “make war upon this bloody tyrant Time” (16.2). Clearly, as time passes from one sonnet to the next, the poet’s hatred towards the personified time is greatly intensified. He moves from calling him wasteful to a bloody tyrant, signifying escalated frustration as time progresses. More than this, it feels like an explosion of hatred as his love loses more of his valuable youth. Relatedly, it was previously proven that Shakespeare personifies time negatively to illustrate the poet’s desire to transcend it. This growing hatred, then, signifies that this desire causes increasing bitterness, as the poet grows to hate time more passionately in the latter of the two sonnets. More subtly though, he advances from describing his desire to transcend time as a war for love to describing it as making war upon it. The word “making" allows the poet to describe himself as the initiator in a war derived from persecution(tyranny) in Sonnet 16, whereas Sonnet 15 paints him and Time as equals in a competition. There is again an escalation in his own mind of the ferocity of his war with time, which gives readers insight into his increasingly bitter mindset. Because this mental war is caused by the poet’s desire to transcend time and his aggression intensifies as such, it is proven that this desire causes a growing bitterness to the person that has it. As seen in the sonnets, this bitterness towards the personified time turns Shakespeare’s language generally more sinister, portraying that a desire to transcend it inevitably causes people to grow more resentful. In addition to increased bitterness, Shakespeare’s sonnets portray that a person’s insanity progresses with time if they hold the unachievable desire to transcend it. This is illustrated in how the poet’s strategies to preserve his love’s youth chronologically grow off-putting. Notably, these strategies are inherently derived from the desire to transcend time because they hold the goal of obtaining symbolic life past death. This is unnatural in the context of time because time naturally causes all things to die and be forgotten. As shown, Sonnet 15 suggests the use of language to preserve life, reading, “and, all in war with Time for love of you,/ As he takes from you, I engraft you new” (15.13-14). The word engraft in ancient Greek meant “to write.” Similarly, this word also alludes to the “grafting” of plants, continuing the metaphor comparing the poet’s love to a plant in precious lines. Grafting a plant is to help it grow and create new life. So, when Shakespeare says he will “engraft you new,” he means that the poet will preserve his love’s life and memory in his undying poem. This is a romantic and heartwarming method of renewing his love’s life, but the next sonnet describes a more peculiar strategy. Sonnet 16 reads, “Many maiden gardens, yet unset,/ With virtuous wish would bear your living flowers,/ Much liker than your painted counterfeit./ So should the lines of life that life repair” (16.6-9). When Shakespeare writes “the lines of life”, he means lineage, which alludes to bearing children. He then says that the lines of life would repair life itself, essentially noting that bearing children would preserve his love’s life and memory in them. The insanity comes in through this jump of boldness from keeping his love alive with romantic poems to urging him to procreate. It is easy to imagine that the young man would be thrown off by this. Insanity is also found, though, in the alluring way the poet attempts to convince the young man to procreate. The line, “Many maiden gardens, yet unset” carries enticing undertones, as he explains that there are bountiful available women who have yet to marry. Shakespeare ventures further down this path by saying that said women would bear his children with “virtuous wish”. This is a temptation, as it suggests that the young man could reproduce with any woman he pleases. The young man reading this would surely be made uncomfortable as he is being urged to procreate with someone else by a man who is in love with him to preserve his youth. It is madness. Because the poet’s desire to transcend time influences him to jump from romance to insanity and use uncomfortable language such as this, it is seen that this desire leads to diminishing tranquility as time progresses. As proven here, Shakespeare shows that attempting to trump time undoubtedly results not only in bitterness but also in the deterioration of a person’s right mind. To reiterate, Sonnets 15 and 16 share the common theme of wishing to transcend time — with the specific goal to preserve the youth and life of the young man a poet falls in love with. Shakespeare then shows through the poet’s growing hatred towards his own personification of time and uneasy jump between strategies to preserve his love’s youth that the desire to transcend time inevitably leads to bitterness and insanity as more of it passes. This is a seemingly depressing narrative, but if readers keep in mind the poet’s fault, they will not fall down his path. The poet is so infatuated with his love’s youthful beauty that the thought of its deterioration drives him mad. Trying to preserve it past conceivable bounds ultimately leads to his own unhappiness. The lesson to be learned here is one of balance; if one appreciates their relationships in the present and understands life’s ephemerality, they will surely find themselves more content. Even more than this, it will make their love more genuine and enjoyable because it will be in the moment and worth living for.

I first experienced what would later be diagnosed as severe epilepsy with absence in April of 2022, the year I graduated high school. The seizure happened as I was driving my teammate home from rugby practice. As the thought left my eyes, I let go of the wheel and uttered nonsense. He had to take control of it to prevent us from crashing. I had not known anyone with a similar condition before, so I was left in a state of near-incessant consternation. I felt as though my doctors were failing me -- being shunned away and accused of drug usage while not being able to see a specialist for six months. My last rugby season was cut short and the stress the seizures induced (not to my knowledge at the time) only exacerbated my condition. Further, I was instructed to refrain from driving and to avoid dangerous activity. As a senior in high school beginning his summer, it can be imagined that these restrictions were infuriating. Through all of this, however, I am proud to say I was never afraid. Although anxious and frustrated, never afraid. I knew I was strong enough to overcome the madness and I could actively see myself handling it. In addition to this, the 20 or so doctor's appointments and countless emails/phone calls left me exhausted yet proud of myself for taking matters into my own hands. I can see now that this was an early glimpse of what Millennials call "adulting". In the end, I let myself have a fun summer. However, I did not partake in a considerable amount of activities with friends and found myself staying in at night much more often. I thought it best to tread lightly into what was seemingly becoming the rest of my life. And although I can cut myself slack because I was uneducated on my condition's nature at the time, this summer left me with just one regret: I let it hold me back. Come my diagnosis by the aforementioned specialist in September of that year (two weeks into my first semester of college), I felt as if the 100-pound dumbbell on my back had been lifted simply by giving my disorder a name. It was just a few months later when I found medication that almost extensively blocked my seizures. I was ecstatic not only to return to some sort of normality but to have proved to myself that my hard work and perseverance were worth it. As I reflect on that time, I find my epilepsy to have impacted my life in a much different way than I had expected. I learned from what I regretted before and decided to forbid my seizures from holding me back any longer. I am more adventurous now than ever before, I am driven to accomplish my goals, and I am striving to live life to the fullest. I am fearless and I owe it to the endurance my epilepsy has given me. Since my diagnosis, I have skydived from over thirteen thousand feet in the air, backpacked through New Zealand, surfed Mavericks Beach, hiked five national parks, and survived a close encounter with a bear. On top of this, I secured an internship in my dream career field. The legacy I want to leave behind is that epilepsy only made me stronger and fueled my wish to live life to the fullest. I want others who will go through what I did to emulate this mindset and view epilepsy as a valuable and empowering experience rather than a burden.