Shakespeare’s Ode “But honey, just because you aren’t as pretty as my ex-girlfriend doesn’t mean I don’t love you! I mean, I still care about you even if you have really bad body odor.” Can you seriously imagine the love of your life telling you this? Well, if anyone can get away with it, it would definitely be William Shakespeare. In Sonnet 130, Shakespeare writes about his “love.” This sonnet, on the surface, appears to do nothing more than to insult his woman. He picks apart all her features and either compares them to objects, or he compares her to the exact opposite of what they are. But, if you look deeper into the poem, you ” ll find a raw honesty that is intense with his love. Shakespeare declares his unconditional love to a woman despite her imperfections. We can give a closer look into the true meaning of the poem by analyzing the syntax, especially the metaphoric usage, the imagery, and the diction.
In the first quatrain, Shakespeare states that his “mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun,” that “coral is far more red” than her lips, that her “breasts are dun” compared to snow, and that “black wires grow on her head.” He uses many nature references in this quatrain, i. e. the sun, coral, and snow. We regard nature as beautiful and magnificent, whereas his lover is the complete opposite of all this.
If we look at the words he uses, he is very specific with his diction. In the line, .”.. then her lips red,” the word lips can be read as either singular or plural. This gives a tone of not exactly contradiction, but definitely hesitation on the poet’s part. When he says that “her breasts are dun,” he uses the word dun to create a feeling. The word itself when read makes the reader come down like a bump.
The Essay on Sonnet Love Shakespeare 130
Sonnet 18 & 130: Comparing and Contrasting Sonnet 18 and Sonnet 130, by William Shakespeare, are two of the most well known sonnets he wrote. Both are some-what similar in theme, however, the two poems are very much contradictory in style, purpose, and the muse who which Shakespeare is writing. Both Sonnets have different styles. Sonnet 18 is a much more traditional poem, showing the reader a ...
This hints at not only his lady’s breast color, but that they sag down more than they should. Also noticeable in this quatrain is the assonance and repetition with words, i. e. her… her… her, if…
if, be… be, red… red, wires… wires.
This is used to reiterate and stress that his mistress is not like these at all. The repetition causes a subtle effect that imprints the thought into your mind. In the second quatrain, a lot of emphasis is put on the imagery created by the diction. He specifically uses the word “damasked” when describing her face. Within the word itself is the word mask, giving you a sense that she is too ugly to show her face and must wear a cover for her face.
The word “reeks” creates the impression of actual stink, and you almost want to smell her to believe it. But here in the 3 rd line of the quatrain, you start to see that he really does love her. When he says, “And in SOME perfumes is there more delight,” he does not completely insult her breath. He could have easily said that breath is the most awful thing in the world, yet he only states that her breath is worse than SOME perfumes. In the third quatrain, things begin to change even more. In the first lines, “I love to hear her speak, yet well I know, That music hath a far more pleasing sound,” he says that her voice is nothing like music.
The disparaging, but honest, comments about her voice being less pleasing than music is rough, but know love is introduced as an emotion felt by the author. In the 3 rd and 4 th lines, the author compares her to a goddess, even if it is not in the best context. He is not saying that she is not a goddess, but that she “treads on the ground” instead of floating on air. The comparisons are now much less cruel.
The final couplet resolves the entire sonnet. In these two lines, he finally professes his true love. “And yet by heaven, I think my love as rare,” speaks of his feelings. “As any she belied with false compare,” gives the sonnet its’s atirical twist. The sonnet resolves on an ironic but honest and positive not of the author’s subject being someone who is real but as rare as the imaginary creature that other poets falsely compare their subjects to. The falseness on what other subjects are compared to is enforced in “belied.” Shakespeare also in the couplet calls her “my love,” as opposed to the quatrains where she is referred to as “my mistress.” Negativity is now deliberately absent in the couplet, especially with the choice of the word “think” rather than the word “know” that is used in the past quatrains.
The Essay on Leave Me O Love Sonnet Narrator Wyatt
Love is a difficult thing to express in words in any given language. It is near impossible to convey the paradoxical pain and pleasure of love that sounds dreadfully horrid but simultaneously magical. Most people are often confused and have a hard time figuring and sorting out exactly how they feel and felt about their love and relationship. However, to love someone or be loved by someone is a ...
Throughout the entire poem, Shakespeare uses careful diction and syntax to show this truly honest and unabashed form on love despite all of his love’s flaws. He does not like her looks, her voice, her breath, or her body, yet he loves her with a rare passion. He manages to create a brilliant metaphoric parody that is satirical of the typical Petrarchan sonnets that likened the subject’s features to nature, into a sonnet that claims to be more honest than the poems it parodies. Although the sonnet is a parody, is does end with the same fundamental theme as the Petrarchan sonnets – total and consuming love despite everything else.
