Comparing My Last Duchess And Sonnet 130

Love and Hate are powerful emotions that influence and control how we interact with people. To express this influence and control and the emotions associated with love and hate, for instance, joy, admiration, anger, despair, jealousy, and disgust, author's craft their writing with literary elements such as as structure, figurative language, imagery, diction, symbolism, and tone. Poems in which these can be seen present are “My Papa’s Waltz” by Theodore Roethke, “My Last Duchess” by Robert Browning, and “Sonnet 130” by William Shakespeare. Within “My Papa’s Waltz” a mighty love is seen between the father and son. To express this Roethke uses figurative language, symbolism and diction. Within “My Last Duchess” there is little love, but an ample hate towards the duchess from the Duch. To express this the

author uses symbolism, imagery, and allegory. Within “Sonnet 130” the main character a Mistress is seen to be shamed being compared to ridiculous ideals, at the end of the poem a twist of tone and a moment of truth turns it into a love poem.

To express this Shakespeare uses symbolism, imagery, and tone to craft his poem. Love, Hate, and any other emotions associated with them are tricky and decisive, and authors use many literary techniques to craft their writings to portray them.

“My Papa’s Waltz” by Theodore Roethke is a poem that illustrates the love and bonding between a father and child through structure, figurative language, imagery, symbolism, and diction. The poem begins with lines making it seem negative, violent, and maybe even hate. However it was really his use of figurative language to show them bonding and having fun. In the first quatrain it says the father has whiskey breath, enough to make a child dizzy, so the child hangs on like “death”, because it was hard for him to waltz. At a first glance this may seem negative because of the whiskey and the author's choice of words like death. Although it is not negative. The father may have had a whiskey breath but it doesn't state he was drunk, and him hanging on like death may sound horrific, but he has to hold on to him so he is inescapable as death because it is

really hard to waltz with a person twice his height. This demonstrates Roethke’s use of figurative language and diction. In the second quatrain the waltzing escalates into romping, they romped so much the kitchen became a mess, making the mother frown. In this quatrain the love becomes more visible because the waltzing was so fun it turned into romping, which is play fighting. Although the mother frowns, the frowning is stated after saying how the kitchen became a mess, indicating it was because of the kitchen not violence. This clearly shows Roethke’s use of structure to show the bonding between them. In the third quatrain the lines seem to be violent again. The hand that the father was using to hold the child was battered on one knuckle. The battered knuckle at first may seem like a sign of violence, however it symbolizes how hard the father works for the family and the child. Another way Roethke shows how love influence people, in this case it was the love the father had for his family caused him to work hard through the pain and endure. in the fourth and final quatrain the father beat time in the child's head, with a palm caked hard by dirt, then waltzed him to bed, where he clinged to his shirt. The first lines in the quatrain once again may seem violent, however it is symbolism. The beating of time symbolizes the fun and and bonding the child experienced, hardly noticing the time passing, also why he was waltzing the child to bed, suggesting it was past his bedtime. The palm caked hard by a dirt is another symbolism of his dad working hard for his family, and still finding time to bond with him after. At the end when he gets waltzed off to bed and he clings on, not wanting to let go, Symbolizes all the love he has for his dad and how happy he is, and affirming that the night has been great full of bonding, disregarding the figurative violence. The poem conveys, although not clearly because of Roethke's crafting of the poem, full of figurative language, symbolism, imagery and diction, how powerful love is and what it influences people to do.

“My Last Duchess” by Robert Browning is a poem about little love and ample hate. Browning illustrates this through symbolism, imagery, and allegory. The poem starts off with the Dutch showing the painting of his last duchess to someone, someone random. He calls her a wonder and tells the stranger that people like him(strangers) never see the painting, because it is his painting and he puts a curtain to cover it so he and only he can see and show it. The Dutch calling it a wonder is probably the only significant sign of love for her throughout the poem, the love reverts to hate, jealousy, power lust, disgust, and resentment.
Him saying how only he can see and show the painting symbolizes his power lust, and foreshadows jealousy and control issues. He then points out the blush on her cheeks, calling it a “spot of joy”. Then claiming it was not only his presence that gave her that “spot of joy”, but the comments the painter made about how beautiful she is. Then he goes on to say how she thanked everyone the same for everything, even the smallest things like grape from a servant, as if his gift of a nine-hundred year old name was the same as any other small gift. This shows Browning’s use of imagery as he talks about the spot of joy, he does not describe it as a normal blush, probably to symbolize how far the Dutch’s jealousy and disgust goes to emphasize what was likely a normal blush. The disgust and jealousy because of how she thanks everyone symbolizes his insecurities and lust for power, he wants to be the only one she thanks and has blushes for. As the poem continues his hatred and anger can be seen to grow as his description of her gets absurd. In lines 42-46, he claims whenever she passed him she smiled, then he says everyone else also smiled the same, so he gave commands, and the smile stopped, Admitting he killed her because she smiled, and thanked people. Killing because of such a light matter symbolizes how much his hatred grew of her, so much so he killed her because of a smile, and admitted his act to
a complete stranger. At the end of the poem the Dutch is seen to be remarrying and the person he is telling the story of his last Duchess to, whom once thought to be a stranger is revealed to be the representative who arranged the new marriage. This was another symbolism for his need for power and control, he confined in the arranger to perhaps give a warning so the new Duchess would not be anything like his last Duchess. Throughout the whole poem Browning has effectively conveyed what hate, jealousy, anger, and disgust can make people do through the use of many literary techniques, especially symbolism. Showing how all those emotions tied with hate Influenced the Dutch to kill his Duchess, and as if it was a light matter, jump into a new marriage. Perhaps it is a light matter when hate is in power.

“Sonnet 130” by William Shakespeare is a poem filled with Nuance, figurative language, symbolism, tone, hyperbole, and imagery. Due to the the use of nuance, and figurative language the poem at first seems like a poem of hate, when infact it is a love poem. The Poem is about comparing this mistress to uncomparable subject as if exploiting her flaws and shaming her. For example lines 5-8 “I have seen roses damask’d, red and white, but no such roses see i in her cheeks; and in some perfumes is there more delight than in the breath that from mistress reeks” In the quote the use of imagery and symbolism and hyperbole is clearly used to shame the mistress. He compares her cheeks to roses, an obvious hyperbole because he is comparing a girl's cheeks to roses and her breath to perfume. Stating how her cheeks never has the redness in them as he has seen in a many roses, and how her breath reeks compared to the perfumes he has smelled. Through this absurd comparison it seems as if shakespeare is illustrating an emotion of hate. This shaming continues till the end of the poem and changes in the last two lines “and yet, by heaven, i think my love as rare as any belied with false compare” Through these two lines the reason of the poem becomes clear. The poem is about love. Shakespeare’s change of tone in the last lines makes his use of nuance clear, he used to it to declare his love and shame those who compare women to such standards. Through this Shakespeare shows us how the influence of love will make people change their standards and accept people disregarding their flaws.

In conclusion, authors use many literary elements and techniques to accomplish the goal of their writing. Within theses three poems the goals were similar, to convey the influence of love and hate, or both to their readers. it can be seen in all three poems. In “My Papa's Waltz” Roethke used many literary techniques, especially symbolism and figurative language to convey this great love and bond between the father and child, all while showing us that for love you will do hard work and endure just as the father did for his family. In “My Last Duchess” Browning shows us through many literary techniques, especially imagery of how much hate was boiled up within him coming from disgust, jealousy, and anger, that he commanded the death of his wife and as if it was a light matter he soon arranged his remarriage. Clearly conveying the influence and control of hate. In “sonnet 130” Shakespeare conveys how much love he has for his mistress through many literary techniques, especially nuance and imagery. At first it seems he hated her, as he was shaming her, however it was really a nuance to declare his love for her, and shame those who compare girls to those standards. Showing us clearly how love influence you to give up standards so many people use. Thus these authors have clearly and effectively shown us the influence of love, hate and the emotions associated with them, even though they are really tricky and decisive emotions.