The Figurative Speech in Sonnet 18 and Sonnet 130 by William Shakespeare
Love is something fickle that we struggle to understand. Most people fall in love sooner or later, and people have different ways of professing their love. In Shakespeare's "Sonnet 18" and "Sonnet 130," he presents 2 characters with different ways of describing their love. "Sonnet 18" utilizes figurative language to portray the character's admiration of his lover, while "Sonnet 18" contains a more realistic tone that conveys the character's love in a different manner. Both "Sonnet 18" and "Sonnet 130" illustrate the love of a lover, but literary devices like down-to- earth diction and figurative language drastically change the tones of both passages and cause them to diverge. Shakespeare utilizes varying diction, figurative language, and tones to convey the extent of love that the speaker has for his lover.
"Sonnet 18" describes the beauty of the woman through imagery to describe her incomparable beauty. She's "more lovely and more temperate" than a summer day and never loses her splendor or contains any flaws the pinnacle of perfection. While the summer may fade and has times where it is too extreme or fading, her "eternal summer shall not fade." Talking about how death won't "brag thou wander'st in his shade," the speaker emphasizes that even death would see his lover as prizeworthy and brag about taking her to make his own. The speaker is in love with this woman, and he portrays this love through remarks about her aesthetic beauty to convey how much he loves her. For this reason, the imagery and other figurative language in the sonnet serve to describe her beauty. The lover will never "lost possession of that fair thou ow'st" because this sonnet encompasses the passion of his love for her. He speaks of her with a tone of utter admiration of her beauty, and he makes that clear through his comparisons to her that cannot hope to encapsulate her perfection.
On the other hand, "Sonnet 130" takes on a more realistic tone by claiming the mistress is not a goddess; nevertheless, that cannot dampen the speaker's love for her. In this sonnet, the comparison of the mistress to things considered "beautiful" serve as an emphasis of her mortality, building up to a shift at the end of the sonnet. Unlike the description of the woman in "Sonnet 18," this woman's "breasts are dun" and "the breath from [her] reeks." This use of unflattering diction serves to depict that she is not a goddess; rather, someone average. The speaker's comparisons paint his love in an undesirable image. However, the speaker indicates in the last 2 lines that even though he recognizes the flaws of his lover's aesthetic beauty, that his love for her is as great as any other lover's love. The realistic diction and figurative language that serve to describe her imperfections show that his love goes beyond beauty.
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Although these sonnets have different tones, they still contain the same purpose in describing the speaker's lover for his lover. "Sonnet 18" exaggerates the beauty of the woman through flattering diction and "Sonnet 130" is more realistic in describing the woman through comparisons, but they both emphasize the love of the speaker towards the woman, which occurs in the last 2 lines for both sonnets. While love itself is important, it is the portrayal of this love that holds true significance, which is what Shakespeare conveys through these 2 sonnets.
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The Figurative Speech in Sonnet 18 and Sonnet 130 by William Shakespeare. (2023, Feb 21). Retrieved from https://phdessay.com/the-figurative-speech-in-sonnet-18-and-sonnet-130-by-william-shakespeare/
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