And ultimately, this reinforces the romantic imperative of distilling the human experience within its context. For Wordsworth, the context of modernity invokes a greater appreciation for man's inextricable bond to the natural world. For Shakespeare, a pre-romantic prerogative toward leaving one's own stamp on the world seems to drive the perspective of Sonnet 116. So is this evidenced by his closing remarks, which states rather definitively, "If this be error and upon me proved, I never writ, nor no man ever loved." Both with regard to the way that Shakespeare characterizes the everlasting nature of true love and the way that he...

Still, the two pieces ultimately appear as different points on the same continuum, probing man's identity as it relates to forces greater than man such as nature, society and time. Indeed, a preoccupation for poets and for their readers alike, both Shakespeare and Wordsworth show a compelling desire to document mortality before they are felled by it.
Works Cited:

Shakespeare, W. (1609). Sonnet 116. Shakespeare-Online.com.

Wordsworth, W. (1807). I Wandered Lonely as a…