Sonnet 130 Figurative Language

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.

“Sonnet 130”. This poem first starts off with a man or possibly a woman, talking about their mistress in a negative way. Starting off with saying “My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun” (Shakespeare 1.) This man or woman than starts talking more about how his mistress’s lips,

The amount of beauty that a woman possesses is different, which makes each woman unique in her own way. Although, a woman should not be judged by what she looks like on the outside, society today makes it seem that if a woman does not have perfect hair or a perfect body, they are not beautiful. In William Shakespeare’s Sonnet 130, he gives details of the speaker’s descriptive comparison of nature’s beauties to his mistress’ beauty. Shakespeare uses a judgmental tone with misrepresentative word choice to suggest that even though his mistress doesn’t live up to society’s standards for women, her beauty is unique in his eyes.

In the hands of a master such as Shakespeare, the conventions of the sonnet form are manipulated and transformed into something unique and originally emphasized. Both sonnets in one way or another subvert the conventions of the base Petrarchan sonnet; though they are about love, the traditional topic of sonnets, whilst in Sonnet 20 the object of desire is unattainable and there is no evidence of the level of affection being requited, the target is male, and the target of the poet's affections in Sonnet 130 is the poetic voice's current mistress. It also seems important to note that love in neither of these cases is of the generic youthful female Aryan stereotype, and

William Shakespeare, an English playwright and poet, is perhaps the most famous writer in the English language. One of his poems, Sonnet 130, is a parody of typical Petrarchan love poetry in which Petrarch often wrote about an idealized woman he loved and worshipped. In Shakespeare’s sonnet, he makes fun of the idea that a woman can be so perfect and so amazing by describing his mistress as a completely average person. This makes the Petrarchan love poems seem silly and false because, as Shakespeare seems to suggest, no one is that perfect and amazing, including Shakespeare’s “mistress”. The last lines of the poem make clear that Shakespeare did not approve of these high, unreasonable standards of the time. Shakespeare’s Sonnet 130 begins with Shakespeare intentionally comparing his mistress to the unreasonable, exaggerated

Unlike Sonnet 18, Shakespeare utterly abandons the poetic convention of Petrarchan conceit in Sonnet 130. In this poem, Shakespeare denies his mistress all of the praises Renaissance poets customarily attributed to their lovers. The first quatrain is filled exclusively with the Shakespeare's seeming insults of his mistress. While Sir Thomas Wyatt authors a poem entitled "Avising the Bright Beams of These Fair Eyes," in the first line of Sonnet 130, Shakespeare affirms that his "mistress's eyes are nothing like the sun." John Wootton, in a poem published in England's Helicon, boasts that his love has "lips like scarlet of the finest dye," but in Sonnet 130 , Shakespeare is sure that his beloved's lips are not nearly quite as red as coral (11; 2). Michael Drayton, in his poem, To His Coy Love, begs his lover, "Show me no more those snowy

Poems use lots of different ways to express personal relationships. The authors of these poems can use language, tone, structure and many other ways to convey personal relationships. The poem Valentine by Carol Ann Duffy uses many of these aspects. The main idea of this poem is to compare an onion to the love a woman has for her lover. The poem Sonnet 130 by Shakespeare also uses language, tone, structure and imagery. This poem however uses them in a different way. This poem is about how a man loves his wife/lover in his own special way. These two poems use language, tone, structure, rhyme/rhythm and imagery to express a personal relationship.

In “Sonnet 93” by William Shakespeare, the speaker has an honest love for his significant other. He seems a little confused and has uncertainty coming from his partner and starts to question their relationship. The speaker is focused on how things look on the outside isn’t always the same as on the inside.  Some people may seem sweet and innocent on the outside, but are evil and cruel on the inside.  Shakespeare uses diction, allusion, imagery, and form and structure in his sonnet to illustrate how people aren’t the same on the outside as on the inside.

One can infer that the preferable color in a woman’s cheeks are red and white. This is because of the use of the word “Dmask’d” (130.5) Shakespeare’s use of “dmask’d” means a pattern of red and white on a rose meaning an exemplary flower for him. Also, it represents a beautiful color of cheeks. “But no such roses see I in her cheeks;” (130.6) is a metaphorical statement because “roses in cheeks” is physically impossible but very effortless to visualize because it means the color of one's cheeks(Metaphorically). Subsequent to this, Shakespeare seems to impose self conflict in himself which is exhibited by ”I love to hear her speak, yet well I know, That music hath a far more pleasing sound;” (130.9-10)

The reason why Sonnet 130 is a part of the literary cannon is because the Sonnets introduce a very strict system needed to follow to even be considered a sonnet. All of Williams Shakespeare’s pieces are incredible but the Sonnets are special. All the Sonnets have to follow a strict set of rules this includes being fourteen line long and follow an ABABCDCDEFEFGG rhyme system. The creation of one of these Sonnets would be a challenge however Shakespeare developed 154 of them and so there are 2156 lines. This just goes to show the commitment and creativity of William Shakespeare. Each Sonnet also has a “Problem or Issue” for the first eight stanzas then “Opinion on the Problem” for stanza nine to twelve and finally a “Resolution” for the last two stanzas. The “Problem or Issue” is that this “Mistress” is not the ideal woman. The “Opinion on the Problem” is the He (The man describing the mistress does not know the ideal woman. Lastly, the “Resolution” can be seen to be that “He” loves besides of all these flaws or he is saying “she will do”. This is why Sonnet 130 is part of literary canon because of the meaning and the strict structure that has to be followed making it very hard to create this Sonnet.

Sonnet 116 entirely talks about what love is and what it isn't. The first quatrain talks about how love is never changing and if it is it is not true love. Then in the second part he states that love survives all of the hardships that is brought to it. It helps bring people to peace. The third quatrain discusses what love is not. Love does not fade because of time spent together or ones looks. It does not alter its self even at times of great danger. The final couplet finally states that if all that the author says above is not true then he has never loved before.

“Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?” (Line 1). “My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun” (Line 1). These are both two of the famous lines from William Shakespeare’s sonnet 18 and 130. William Shakespeare was an intelligent English playwright, poet, and dramatist during the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. He is known as one of the greatest playwrights of all time. Sonnet 18 and 130 are two of Shakespeare’s most famous poems. Sonnet 18 is a love poem about how he compares the woman’s love to a summer’s day. Sonnet 130 has a different approach. It is still a comparison, but it seems to be a more spiteful one. These sonnets are both share similar subjects, imagery, theme, and rhyme scheme; however they are more so different in forms and purpose.

The consistency of rhyme scheme helps underscore Shakespeare's thoughts by emphasizing certain words. Looking at the first two lines of each quatrain and comparing the rhyme with the second two lines of the quatrain, one may see some interesting pairing of words. "Sun" (line 1) and "red" (line 2) versus "dun" (line 3) and "head" (line 4), "white" (line 5) and "cheeks" (line 6) versus "delight" (line 7) and "reeks" (line 8) and finally "know" (line 9) and "sound" (line 10) versus "go" (line 11) and "ground" (line 12). The words completing the first two lines in each quatrain, when paired together, describe something pleasant while the words paired in the second two lines describe something unpleasant. This helps strengthen Shakespeare's message

Love is a central theme in William Shakespeare's sonnets, yet the means by which love is expressed and the form in which it takes differs across various sonnets. In sonnet 116, Shakespeare lavishes the reader with beautiful imagery of love in its most idyllic form. On the other hand, in sonnet 130, he adopts a more realistic approach to love as it is experienced by everyday people. In both cases, the poet is able to artfully convey the theme of love in its various forms such that the reader is able to easily recognize and identify with it.

“Sonnet 130” has a tone of truthfulness. Throughout the sonnet Shakespeare says somewhat mean but truthful facts about the appearance of his mistress. Even though the statements seem cruel and mean he is speaking the truth and these flaws don’t bother him. The sonnet’s mood is loving. Shakespeare doesn’t have the slightest problem with not having the “prettiest” mistress which is proven by how he talks about her saying things like “black wires grow on her head” (l. 4). He prefers to have a woman with a more beautiful inside rather than outside. Shakespeare’s view on love creates the tone and mood for the sonnet but is also a great