Petrarch sonnet 126 is crammed full of metaphors but there are a couple that sticks out. The metaphors focus is to convince the reader that the woman he desires is beyond perfection. Through the use of metaphors, Petrarch sonnet 126 shows how his poetry idealizes Laura.
The first of the metaphors that is the clearest example of his obsession is when he describes her as a “divine beauty.” With this metaphor, he is clearly comparing Laura beauty to that of a goddess. Petrarch is trying to place Laura in a league of her own by comparing her to a goddess. It becomes clear that he focuses only on Laura because of her attractiveness. In relation to life now, comparing someone to a god is something that you most often do not hear. Although, we use it as a way to explain why a girl looks the way she does, most
…show more content…
Petrarch lets the reader know that this woman was born in a heavenly place above the world of ordinary people. He continues to place her in a world of her owns by his comparisons, which he probably feels no one but those of perfection can reach. Since paradise is a symbol of a perfect place, using this metaphor Petrarch emphasizes just how perfect Laura is. Perfect people are born in perfect places, so in that perspective Laura is perfect as well. This metaphor relates to now because we still use it, albeit in a different way. Instead of how Petrarch used it, we would say that one of gods angel must have fell from heaven. The metaphor is actually very popular for the younger people of our time. They most often use it as another pick up line to court some woman they obsessing over. The metaphor is becoming somewhat of a modern compliment for people to use in order for us to let someone know how we feel about him or her. This popular metaphor will possibly stick around even past our time, thanks to
In “Sonnet,” Billy Collins satirizes the classical sonnet’s volume to illustrate love in only “…fourteen lines…” (1). Collins’s poem subsists as a “Sonnet,” though there exists many differences in it countering the customarily conventional structure of a sonnet. Like Collins’s “Sonnet,” Shakespeare’s “Sonnet 130” also faces incongruities from the classic sonnet form as he satirizes the concept of ideal beauty that was largely a convention of writings and art during the Elizabethan era. Although these poem venture through different techniques to appear individually different from the classic sonnet, the theme of love makes the poems analogous.
"Poetry is the revelation of a feeling that the poet believes to be interior and personal [but] which the reader recognizes as his own." (Salvatore Quasimodo). There is something about the human spirit that causes us to rejoice in shared experience. We can connect on a deep level with our fellow man when we believe that somehow someone else understands us as they relate their own joys and hardships; and perhaps nowhere better is this relationship expressed than in that of the poet and his reader. For the current assignment I had the privilege (and challenge) of writing an imitation of William Shakespeare’s "Sonnet 87". This poem touched a place in my heart because I have actually given this sonnet to someone before as it then communicated my thoughts and feelings far better than I could. For this reason, Sonnet 87 was an easy choice for this project, although not quite so easy an undertaking as I endeavored to match Shakespeare’s structure and bring out his themes through similar word choice.
This poem speaks of a love that is truer than denoting a woman's physical perfection or her "angelic voice." As those traits are all ones that will fade with time, Shakespeare exclaims his true love by revealing her personality traits that caused his love. Shakespeare suggests that the eyes of the woman he loves are not twinkling like the sun: "My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun" (1). Her hair is compared to a wire: "If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head" (3). These negative comparisons may sound almost unloving, however, Shakespeare proves that the mistress outdistances any goddess. This shows that the poet appreciates her human beauties unlike a Petrarchan sonnet that stresses a woman's cheek as red a rose or her face white as snow. Straying away from the dazzling rhetoric, this Shakespearean poem projects a humane and friendly impression and elicits laughter while expressing a truer love. A Petrarchan sonnet states that love must never change; this poem offers a more genuine expression of love by describing a natural woman.
William Shakespeare’s “Sonnet 130”, was published in the mid-1590, and published with the rest of Shakespeare’s sonnets in 1609. The sonnet has fourteen lines, and divided into three quatrains and one couplet at the end. The rhyme scheme is cross rhyme, with the last two lines being couplets that rhyme. The sonnet compares between nature and the poets’ lover or mistress. He shows a more realistic view of his lover. Needless to say his significant other wasn’t physically attractive, yet he loved her inside beauty. Today we may use the term, “It’s not all about looks, but what’s inside”.
Sonnet 130 is Shakespeare’s harsh yet realistic tribute to his quite ordinary mistress. Conventional love poetry of his time would employ Petrarchan imagery and entertain notions of courtly love. Francis Petrarch, often noted for his perfection of the sonnet form, developed a number of techniques for describing love’s pleasures and torments as well as the beauty of the beloved. While Shakespeare adheres to this form, he undermines it as well. Through the use of deliberately subversive wordplay and exaggerated similes, ambiguous concepts, and adherence to the sonnet form, Shakespeare creates a parody of the traditional love sonnet. Although, in the end, Shakespeare embraces the overall Petrarchan theme of total and consuming love.
Shakespeare and Petrarch, two poets popular for their contributions on the issue of love, both tackle the subject of their work through sonnet, yet there are key contrasts in their style, structure, and in the way, each approaches their subjects. Moreover, it is clear that in "Sonnet 130," Shakespeare in fact parodies Petrarch's style and thoughts as his storyteller describes his mistress, whose "eyes are in no way as the sun" (Shakespeare 1918). Shakespeare seems, by all accounts, to mock the exaggerated descriptions expanded throughout Petrarch’s piece by giving an English poem portraying the speaker’s love in terms that are characteristic of a flawed woman not a goddess. On the other hand, Petrarch's work is full of symbolism. In reviewing "Sonnet 292" from the Canzoniere, through “Introduction to Literature and Arts,” Petrarch’s utilization of resemblance and the romanticizing of Petrarch's female subject are normal for the Petrarchan work. The leading major contrast between the two poems is the piece structure utilized (McLaughlin).
"Sonnet 73" by William Shakespeare contains many metaphors to form a descriptive image. Shakespeare used conceits, which are "fanciful extended metaphors" (567), used in love poems of earlier centuries. Shakespeare used these beautifully in "Sonnet 73." A metaphor is a "brief, compressed comparison that talks about one thing as if it were another" (554). Shakespeare expresses three major metaphors in this sonnet. The first is about age, the second about death, and of course, love follows. These three metaphors create an enjoyable poem.
One of the poems that William Shakespeare wrote is called “That time of year thou mayst in me behold.” It is also known as William Shakespeare’s Sonnet 73. This Sonnet is viewed as being comprised of metaphors, which capture the struggle of life. Life in which there is an end to everything but beauty within it. The speaker within this poem is one that reflects on his life and how nature is closely connected with his journey. In order to understand the theme of the poem, the reader must first recognize and understand the three major metaphors within the poem.
During the Renaissance, it was common for poets to employ Petrarchan conceit to praise their lovers. Applying this type of metaphor, an author makes elaborate comparisons of his beloved to one or more very dissimilar things. Such hyperbole was often used to idolize a mistress while lamenting her cruelty. Shakespeare, in Sonnet 18, conforms somewhat to this custom of love poetry, but later breaks out of the mold entirely, writing his clearly anti-Petrarchan work, Sonnet 130.
This sonnet uses a lot of personification. This is when you give an non-living object human traits and qualities. For example in line 5: "Sometimes too hot the eye of heaven shines", we say that the heaven's eye shines, but does heaven really have an eye and does it shine? No. Next example is in line 6: "And often is his gold complexion dimmed". The sun is that 'gold' thing, but does it really have a complexion? Again, no. One last example is in line 9, which maybe is not an example of personification in our sense, but it could be in the poet's sense! "But thy eternal summer shall not fade"; to the poet, summer is not eternal, but the beauty and life of his beloved is.
I grant I never saw a goddess go; my mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground.” Another theme for “Sonnet 130” is writing and literature. The main reason for Shakespeare to make this poem was to make fun of other poems. He is showing how some poetic metaphors can become. This poem is about other poems as much as it is about a woman he loves. The themes in
Shakespeare's Sonnet 116, denying Time's harvest of love, contains 46 iambic, 15 spondaic, 6 pyrrhic, and 3 trochaic feet. Like the varying magnitudes of stars that distinguish the sky's constellations, infused with myths describing all degrees and types of love, the spondaic, trochaic, and pyrrhic substitutions create a pattern of meaning that can be inferred by the discerning eye and mind. Shakespeare emphasizes his denial of the effects of Time on love by accenting "not" in lines 1, 2, 9, and 11, and "no" in lines 5 and 14. The forceful spondees at the beginning and the regular iambic feet at the end of each quatrain progressively build the poet's passionate rejection of love's transience. Quatrains 1 and 3, declaring what love cannot be, enfold his definition of love in Quatrain 2. The spondee, "It is," draws attention to the word "star" and the poem's essential metaphor, equating love and the North Star, at the poem's heart in lines 7 and 8. This figure of speech implies that while one can feel the intensity of one's love, i.e. measur...
In addition, the sonnet is a statement of respect about the beauty of his beloved; summ...
Through the form of sonnet, Shakespeare and Petrarch both address the subject of love, yet there are key contrasts in their style, structure, and in the manner, each approaches their subjects. Moreover, in "Sonnet 130," Shakespeare, in fact, parodies Petrarch's style and thoughts as his storyteller describes his mistress, whose "eyes are in no way as the sun" (Shakespeare 1918). Through his English poem, Shakespeare seems to mock the exaggerated descriptions expanded throughout Petrarch’s work by portraying the speaker’s love in terms that are characteristic of a flawed woman not a goddess. On the other hand, upon a review of "Sonnet 292" from the Canzoniere, through “Introduction to Literature and Arts,” one quickly perceives that Petrarch's work is full of symbolism. However, Petrarch’s utilization of resemblance and the romanticizing of Petrarch's female subject are normal for the Petrarchan style.
Steele, Felicia Jean. "Shakespeare's SONNET 130." Explicator 62.3 (2004): 132-137. Academic Search Complete. Web. 29 Nov. 2013.