Sonnet XVII, by Pablo Neruda

1177 Words3 Pages

Rhetorical Analysis of “Sonnet XVII” An analysis of Pablo Neruda’s “Sonnet XVII,” from the book 100 Love Sonnets: Cien sonetos de amor, reveals the emotions of the experience of eternal, unconditional love. Neruda portrays this in his words by using imagery and metaphors to describe love in relation to beauty and darkness. The poem also depicts the intimacy between two people. I believe the intent of the poem is to show that true love for another abolishes all logic, leaving one completely exposed, captivated, and ultimately isolated. Neruda begins his sonnet in a most unusual manner. He states in the first few lines ways in which he does not love his companion. He does not love her as if she were “the salt-rose, topaz, or arrow of carnations.” These are all examples of beautiful things that are to be admired. Each one is a bright and colorful breed of rose. The poem is not implying that this person is unattractive. Rather, it is simply stating the unimportance of her appearance in relation to his love for her. The beauty within her soul charms him. The narrator is completely captivated with this person. Neruda uses emotions to portray love in his poem. “Sonnet XVII” does not describe a love for someone who has done kind things or someone who has been there emotionally, mentally, and physically for another. It describes a love that is illogically based on intense affection alone. The second line of “Sonnet XVII,” begins to elaborate in the ways he does love his significant other. The poem states that he loves as “dark things are to be loved.” He Fontenot 2 loves her secretly, “between the shadow and the soul.” The narrator does not love arrogantly or in vain. His love is precious and personal. Dark things are to be loved pri... ... middle of paper ... ...a dense fragrance that lives in his body. In “Sonnet XVII,” the text begins by expressing the ways in which the narrator does not love, superficially. The narrator is captivated by his object of affection, and her inner beauty is of the upmost significance. The poem shows the narrator’s utter helplessness and vulnerability because it is characterized by raw emotions rather than logic. It then sculpts the image that the love created is so personal that the narrator is alone in his enchantment. Therefore, he is ultimately isolated because no one can fathom the love he is encountering. The narrator unveils his private thoughts, leaving him exposed and susceptible to ridicule and speculation. However, as the sonnet advances toward an end, it displays the true heartfelt description of love and finally shows how two people unite as one in an overwhelming intimacy.

Show More
Related

  • The First Meeting of Romeo and Juliet

    488 Words  | 1 Pages

    Sonnets are concerned with the idea of love, which makes it an appropriate device to use. This passage can be contrasted to love. that Romeo once felt for Rosaline, however Romeo in the first instance. was unwilling and unable to act upon his shallow feelings towards the object of his affection, while at his very first meeting with Juliet. he was able to make contact with her rather than view from afar.

    Read More

  • Hola

    696 Words  | 2 Pages

    Love is something that no one can understand completely, but there is one thing that can be universally accepted: love creates a lot of feelings. Some are painful and mysterious, but some are loving and warm. The poems, "Sonnet 18," and "I Am Offering this Poem," demonstrates how the speakers similarly present their love through imagery, symbolism, and tone to show how they truly love their loved ones. Those feelings are so common these two poems are just some of the infinite amoount of poems that express these similar feeling of love: warmth, addiction, and affection. Love comes in many different ways, but the feelings are relatively similar.

    Read More

  • Essay on Lust and Love in Shakespeare’s Sonnet 130 and Campion’s There is a Garden

    855 Words  | 2 Pages

    When a comparison is made between There is a Garden in Her Face by Thomas Campion and Sonnet 130 by William Shakespeare, the difference between lustful adoration and true love becomes evident. Both poems involve descriptions of a beloved lady seen through the eyes of the speaker, but the speaker in Campion's poem discusses the woman's beautiful perfections, while the speaker in Shakespeare's poem shows that it is the woman's faults which make her beautiful.

    Read More

  • In This Strange Labyrinth, by Mary Wroth

    655 Words  | 2 Pages

    ...e speaker admits she is worried and confused when she says, “The sonnet is the story of a woman’s struggle to make choices regarding love.” (14) Her mind is disturbed from the trials of love.

    Read More

  • Pablo Neruda Figurative Language

    707 Words  | 2 Pages

    This essay will compare two translations of Love Sonnet XVII by Pablo Neruda- one is by Stephen Mitchell, the other by Stephen Topscott. I enjoyed the version by Stephen Topscott the most. Before we can begin comparing translations, we must first understand what the poem is focusing on.

    Read More

  • Difference Between Shakespeare And Thomas Gray

    1149 Words  | 3 Pages

    nothing like the sun” (Sonnet 130). The vying and struggle for the woman’s love is

    Read More

  • Shakespeare's Love To The Dark Lady Analysis

    979 Words  | 2 Pages

    Shakespeare’s sonnets include love, the danger of lust and love, difference between real beauty and clichéd beauty, the significance of time, life and death and other natural symbols such as, star, weather and so on. Among the sonnets, I found two sonnets are more interesting that show Shakespeare’s love for his addressee. The first sonnet is about the handsome young man, where William Shakespeare elucidated about his boundless love for him and that is sonnet 116. The poem explains about the lovers who have come to each other freely and entered into a relationship based on trust and understanding. The first four lines reveal the poet’s love towards his lover that is constant and strong and will not change if there any alternation comes. Next four lines explain about his love which is not breakable or shaken by the storm and that love can guide others as an example of true love but that extent of love cannot be measured or calculated. The remaining lines of the third quatrain refer the natural love which can’t be affected by anything throughout the time (it can also mean to death). In the last couplet, if

    Read More

  • Close Reading of Shakespeare´s Sonnet 130

    671 Words  | 2 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • Comparing the Sonnets of Petrarchan and Shakespearean in Style, Structure and Subject Approach

    1192 Words  | 3 Pages

    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).

    Read More

  • Sonnet 18 And 130 Analysis

    630 Words  | 2 Pages

    In addition, the sonnet is a statement of respect about the beauty of his beloved; summ...

    Read More

  • The Scorned Lover of Sir Philip Sidney's "Sonnet 31"

    713 Words  | 2 Pages

    Sir Philip Sidney’s “Sonnet 31” paints the portrait of a lover scorned. Sidney examines the subject of unrequited love through the sonnet’s male persona, Astrophel. Rather than using a precise enumeration of the sequence of events that led to Astrophel’s painful rejection, Sidney instead leaves the reader to infer the condition of the speaker based on a scene in which Astrophel projects his sorrows onto the moon. Unable to accept the cruelties the “beauties” of his world perpetrate against those who love them and moreover unable to make his particular “beauty” reciprocate his feelings, Astrophel seeks to delineate his understanding of the injustices of unrequited love to an audience devoid of the capacity to either disagree with his assessment or further injure his already wounded pride.

    Read More

  • William Shakespeare and Edmund Spenser

    759 Words  | 2 Pages

    Therefore, because William Shakespeare’s “Sonnet 18” and Edmund Spenser’s “Sonnet 75” share the idea that love is sincere and eternal, they can be looked upon as similar in theme. However, although similar in theme, Shakespeare’s intent is portraying the true everlasting beauty of his love, which is already achieved, whereas Spenser concentrates more on trying to entice his desired love, remaining optimistic throughout the entire poem.

    Read More

  • Analysis of the Sonnet, "My Mistress' Eyes are Nothing like the Sun"

    431 Words  | 1 Pages

    At the time of its writing, Shakespeare's one hundred thirtieth sonnet, a highly candid, simple work, introduced a new era of poems. Shakespeare's expression of love was far different from traditional sonnets in the early 1600s, in which poets highly praised their loved ones with sweet words. Instead, Shakespeare satirizes the tradition of comparing one's beloved to the beauties of the sun. From its opening phrase "My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun", shocks the audience because it does not portray a soft, beautiful woman. Despite the negative connotations of his mistress, Shakespeare speaks a true woman and true love. The sonnet is a "how-to" guide to love.

    Read More

  • Gender Roles and Power Struggles in Edmund Spencer’s Amoretti

    1371 Words  | 3 Pages

    During the course of Edmund Spencer’s Amoretti, the “Petrarchan beloved certainly underwent a transformation” (Lever 98); the speaker depicts the beloved as merciless and is not content with being an “unrequited lover” (Roche 1) as present in a Petrarchan sonnet. Throughout Sonnet 37 and Sonnet 54, the speaker provides insight into the beloved not seen within the Petrarchan sonnets; though the speaker does present his uncontrollable love for the beloved, he does so through his dissatisfaction with his position and lack of control. In Sonnet 37, the speaker describes the beloved as an enchantress who artfully captures the lover in her “golden snare” (Spencer, 6) and attempts to warn men of the beloved’s nature. Sonnet 54, the speaker is anguished by the beloved’s ignorance towards his pain and finally denies her humanity. Spencer allows the speaker to display the adversarial nature of his relationship with the beloved through the speaker’s negative description of the beloved, the presentation of hope of escaping from this love, and his discontent with his powerlessness. Spencer presents a power struggle and inverted gender roles between the lover and the beloved causing ultimate frustration for the speaker during his fight for control.

    Read More

  • Comparison: Petrarchan and Shakespearean Sonnets

    1199 Words  | 3 Pages

    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.

    Read More

More about Sonnet XVII, by Pablo Neruda

Open Document