Shakespeare Sonnet 130 Tone

Shakespeare’s sonnet 130, “My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun” and Pablo Neruda’s “My ugly love” are popularly known to describe beauty in a way hardly anyone would write: through the truth. It’s a common fact that modern lovers and poets speak or write of their beloved with what they and the audience would like to hear, with kind and breathtaking words and verses. Yet, Shakespeare and Neruda, honest men as they both were, chose to write about what love truly is, it matters most what’s on the inside rather than the outside. The theme of true beauty and love are found through Shakespeare and Neruda’s uses of imagery, structure, and tone.

The song “Heartless” by Kanye West and Shakespeare’s poem “Sonnet 130” have a similar message about hatred to one’s lover and use rather similar figurative language techniques to convey this message. The two passages use forms of simile to express their feelings towards their lover. West’s “cold as the winter wind when it breeze, yo” (2) and Shakespeare’s “My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun,” (1) show the hatred towards their lover. The words “nothing” and “cold” offer a negative connotation to their feelings for the other person they love. With Kanye West’s situation in the song, he is comparing his partner’s personality to the frosty, biting, cold winter winds when they are blowing.

By doing so, Shakespeare further implies that it is not the physical perfections, or having a voice as lovely as music that make up love, but rather personality and more skin-deep qualities that make up true love. The utilization of excellent diction, and the use of paradox and allegory techniques throughout conveys to the reader the admirable tone the speaker seems to have for his love, and the realistic point Shakespeare tries to prove in that love is not just simply looks, but character and quality of a person that form a truer and deeper bond.

The last contradicting comparison that portrays women 's beauty can be drawn out by the lines in Shakespeare 's sonnet involving his mistresses ' cheeks: " I have seen roses damask 'd, red and white, But no such roses see I in her cheeks." This line is in direct contraction to Griffin 's fair lady: "Her cheeks, red roses, such as seld have been" (sonnet39). This is practically a word for word mockery of Griffin 's sonnet about his women 's flesh. Shakespeare takes the idea of the rose as a simile to the cheek and morphs his to telling of that his mistress ' cheeks have not the reddest color of rose in them resulting in a pale bleak face.

“My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun;/Coral is far more red than her lips’ red;” (1-2) When one reads those lines in Shakespeare’s “My Mistress’ Eyes Are Nothing Like the Sun”, to a normal eye it may seem as if Shakespeare is attacking his mistress with harmful words for no reason in disgust. But in contrast, if one looks closer throughout the poem, one begins to find abnormalities in its text, to some individuals it would simply state it as just gibberish. As it turns out, Shakespeare was only poking fun at how others would never would have a relationship as pure as his; any other individual would paint their mistress out to be a beyond what she actually is. That gibberish is just one of the literary techniques that authors put in place

To see love written in poetry is a common thing. There are copious forms of love as poets throughout the centuries exemplify it to be happy, physical, or even downright delusional. Love can whip its iron cast hand around one’s heart and squeeze the very breath out, or it can invigorate all senses and make one nonsensical. Shakespeare’s “Sonnet 18” and Robert Browning’s “My Last Duchess” uses various formal differences such as metaphors, imagery, and irony in order to portray two ends of the love spectrum: Shakespeare’s being that romantic love is grand and beautiful while Browning offers a more darker glimpse on how obsessive and controlling love can be.

The speaker presents the woman in the first stanza of the poem in a sensual and loving (captivating) manner. While the poem deals with the speaker’s “love” for the lady, his first descriptions are of her physicality rather than her intellect and companionship, which implies that his supposed “love” may actually be infatuation. In the first line, the speaker reveals his attraction to the woman’s physicality and desirability; “beautiful and faded” conveys that the woman’s appearance as well as her reputation of being “used” fosters his interest in her. He proceeds to use a simile to describe the

The world has many if not endless methods and techniques for demonstrating those specially dear a form of affection. However, the display of the complex understanding of Shakespeare, which to the opinion I lack to the fullest, in the 130th Sonnet, Sonnet 130, demonstrates the speaker’s affection through the development of a complicated attitude through his use of certain writing attributes. Anyhow, sonnet 130 expresses the speakers affection by portraying the real person that he loves and stating that he does not need no fancy gibberish to express his love. This sonnet begins with a generalization of an ugly women or so it seems to divert from the ordinary or tradition vision of beauty creating a direct tone in the speaker.

When he says, “Her lips, her lips/ I could kiss them all day if she’d let me.” He is exaggerating this point considering he cannot actually kiss her the entire day, as every human is compelled to eat, breathe, go to the washroom, etc… But, he is saying that her lips are so beautiful, that he would kiss them all day long if he could. Also he is saying that, “her eyes make the stars look like they’re not shining.” He is saying this due to the fact that he considers her eyes more beautiful than the stars and that they shine brighter so he is exaggerating that he doesn’t even need to glimpse at the stars as long as he has his girlfriend’s eyes, as they are the best things to stare at.

One of William Shakespeare's tools from his choices of words was figurative diction since most words used to describe the narrator’s mistress were based in comparing her to other objects. For example, the poem starts with the narrator using the words “eyes”, “like”, “nothing”, and “sun”. The narrator introduces an example of a simile from the figurative choice of words since the word “like” is been used to compare her to something else. In this case he's comparing the sun’s brightness to the dull light of his mistress's eyes and the eyes are important because they are the door to the soul. Then in line 2 from Sonnet 130, the narrator says that the color of the coral outcast more “her lip’s red”. This is an example of a metaphor since the narrator

“To His Coy Mistress” is a masterpiece to show the courtship of the man on a mistress. In the first stanza, hyperbole with a multitude of allusion shows its admiration of the woman. For example, If the time is not a limit, he will love her forever, from time of “the Flood” to “the conversion of Jews.” The allusions, which refer to objects outside the poem itself, dramaticize his frivolous determination to love her forever. In the second stanza, understatement is extensively used to show the ironically desperation to pursue her for sex.

The poetic voice's mistress is of nature; no supernal gifts are hers. It is even strongly indicated that she is beneath the highest forms of beauty nature has to offer (her eyes are "nothing like the sun", "coral is far more red" than her lips, no "roses see I in her cheeks".) But this is to stray beyond the confines of the original subject, the rest of the verse argues, because the love the voice has for its lover is "as rare" as any other; beauty does not have to draw such clichéd parallels with nature to be thought of in the mind of a lover as surpassing everything around it. In reference to this repeated theme, in the introduction to the Penguin Classics printing of the Sonnets (though in reference specifically to sonnet 84), editor John Kerrigan concludes:

The title of the poem “My mistress eyes are nothing like the sun” suggests that the speaker is not in love with his ‘mistress’. However, this is not the case. Shakespeare uses figurative language by using criticizing hyperboles to mock the traditional love sonnet. Thus, showing not only that the ideal woman is not always a ‘goddess’, but mocking the way others write about love. Shakespeare proves that love can be written about and accomplished without the artificial and exuberant. The speaker’s tone is ironic, sarcastic, and comical turning the traditional conceit around using satire. The traditional iambic pentameter rhyming scheme of the sonnet makes the diction fall into place as relaxed, truthful, and with elegance in the easy flowing verse. In turn, making this sonnet one of parody and real love.

“Sonnet 130” written by William Shakespeare, is one of his most well known poems and can be analyzed and broken apart in great depth. The poem is written in fourteen lines which makes it a sonnet. Like all of Shakespeare’s sonnets the meter is iambic pentameter. The rhyme scheme for “Sonnet 130” is ABAB CDCD EFEF GG. An overlaying theme for “Sonnet 130” is, “True love is based on how beautiful you find someone on the inside.” Shakespeare proves to have a great view on true love in this sonnet. He cares more about what’s on the inside rather than what’s on the outside. “Sonnet 130’s” theme can be proven by Shakespeare's use of poetic and literary devices, the tone and mood of the sonnet, and the motif of true love.

In his poem, “But love whilst that thou mayst be loved again”, he focuses on warning women to find love soon because beauty will not last with age. He compares a woman’s beauty to a flower: “the fairest flower that ever saw the light / men do not weigh the stalk for what it was / when they find her flower, her glory, pass” (Daniel 6, 13-14). Through this metaphor, he shows how men view beauty in love. No one looks at a dead flower and thinks about what it used to be, rather, he or she looks towards other flowers that bloom with life and colour. This sonnet begins as an admiration for his subject’s beauty, but it ends by telling the subject that when her physical beauty deteriorates, no one will love her. This poem reflects society’s fixation on superficial beauty because it reminds women that they will never find love without external beauty, as a result of the superficiality of men in society. Both poems of the Renaissance Period assert the idea of perfection and the importance of physical beauty in love and relationships.