Shakespeare Figurative Language

668 Words2 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Shakespeare perception of love

Through his countless sonnets and plays, William Shakespeare rarely, if ever, runs with a preconceived notion of some topic. The uniqueness of his work, seen throughout the vast array of subjects he touches upon, finds newfound ways of approaching items of daily life. One topic in which Shakespeare is all too familiar with is love. His sonnets especially deal with this subject, with sonnet 130 standing out as probably the largest betrayal of our normal expectations of love as any. Within 14 lines, Shakespeare manages to describe his love in a less than gleaming fashion, consequently tearing down the dreamy-eyed poems about love to which many are familiar. Moreover, through the utilization of figurative language, Shakespeare manages to create …show more content…

Shakespeare makes quick use of a hyperbole, saying “My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun,” to exaggerate her unattractiveness. Just as no person’s eyes could be as beautiful as the sun, it is impossible to have eyes that are nothing like the sun. This line and the consequent ones that follow, make excellent use of this same hyperbolic structure. “If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.” It is obvious that Shakespeare is defying the common expectation of love in this line, painting an almost grotesque picture of his mistress. It almost seems as if no person in their right mind would criticize the one who they hold dearest in this manner, yet here is such an example. This is where it becomes important to recognize the satire Shakespeare employed to create his own social expectation of love. It is obvious that his hyperbolic description of his mistress is extreme, but it draws attention to the fact that his lover is not perfect. So many other writers paint their love as perfect, existing without a single flaw, and without compare. However, by introducing the one he loves as far from perfect in every way, Shakespeare allows his readers to feel comfortable with not achieving the unrealistic expectation of love that has been ingrained within society. He calls out the far-fetched notion of beauty and love present in many other works, and by doing so, effectively creates his own social expectation that love does not have to be physically perfect to stand the test of

Show More
Related

  • A Midsummer Night's Dream Love Analysis

    1262 Words  | 3 Pages

    Perhaps it is Shakespeare’s last unspoken word on the concept of love: childlike and mischievous. For those under love’s spell, perception becomes distorted in the subjectivity of the imagination rather than the objectivity of truth. Helena’s metaphor effectively imparts Shakespeare’s notion that Love has a beguiling and capricious nature. For Shakespeare, lover’s left disillusioned and irrational is conceivably the happiest

    Read More

  • Romeo And Juliet Sonnet 116 Analysis

    1840 Words  | 4 Pages

    Within sonnet 116, Shakespeare compares true love which is indestructible and long-lasting to false love that is fickle and transient. The judgemental quote “love is not love which alters when it alteration finds, “suggests that love which is defeated by obstacles is not genuine love. The use of repetition in the verb ‘alter’ indicates that true love is invincible whereas fake love is easily manipulated and adapted. Shakespeare uses this linguistic devise in order to prove his statements accuracy and validity, that truthful and adoring love s constant.

    Read More

  • Shakespeare's My Mistress' Eyes Are Nothing Like the Sun

    707 Words  | 2 Pages

    When he writes "And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare as any she, belied with false compare." (lines 13-14) in the final couplet, one responds with an enlightened appreciation, making them understand Shakespeare's message that true love consists of something deeper than physical beauty. Shakespeare expresses his ideas in a wonderful fashion. Not only does he express himself through direct interpretation of his sonnet, but also through the levels at which he styled and produced it. One cannot help but appreciate his message of true love over lust, along with his creative criticism of Petrarchan sonnets.

    Read More

  • William Shakespeare Diction Analysis

    487 Words  | 1 Pages

    In an article about deciding on diction, the author wrote, “For writer's, diction is always purposeful, always a costume donned for one effect or another. In each new work, it proclaims the narrator's intended personality and point of view. It spins characters out of thin air, shades everything that is spoken, leads readers between the lines, sets the mood of the performance and shapes emotional responses to it” (Plotnik). This is a very good explanation on how Shakespeare not only picked his wording for this sonnet, but also all of his other famous writings. Word choice is essential to making a poem come to life, and Shakespeare was a master at it. Shakespearean itself, has become a special language of its’ own. It has classes dedicated to deciphering exactly

    Read More

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

    431 Words  | 1 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • Romeo and Juliet is Not a Love Story

    1002 Words  | 3 Pages

    William Shakespeare (1564-1616) was a Renaissance poet and playwright who wrote and published the original versions of 38 plays, 154 sonnets, two long narrative poems, and several other poems. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language, and often called England’s national poet. Several of his works became extremely well known, thoroughly studied, and enjoyed all over the world. One of Shakespeare’s most prominent plays is titled The Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet. In this tragedy, the concept that is discussed and portrayed through the characters is love, as they are recognized as being “in love”.

    Read More

  • Shakespeare’s Language

    1109 Words  | 3 Pages

    The impeccable style and craft of Shakespeare’s writing has always been looked upon with great respect, and it continues to serve as an inspiration to writers and thinkers today even as it did when it was being first performed in London. Shakespeare’s modern audience, however, is far less diverse than the one for which he originally wrote. Due to the antiquity of his language, Shakespeare’s modern readership consists mostly of students and intellectuals, whereas in Shakespeare’s own time, his plays were performed in playhouses packed with everyone from royalty to peasants. Because of this, Shakespeare was forced to write on many different levels, the most sophisticated of which appealed to his more elite audience members, while the more straightforward and often more crude of which appealed to his less educated viewers, and the most universal of which still appeals to us.

    Read More

  • sonnet thing

    529 Words  | 2 Pages

    There are many ways in which love can be expressed and described. In the sonnets “What lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why” by Edna St. Vincent Millay and “Let me not to the marriage of true minds” by William Shakespeare the authors both have epiphanies about love. Millay's Italian sonnet conveys the epiphany effectively through her use of tone and figurative language when contrasted to Shakespeare's Sonnet 116. Shakespeare's ideas and thoughts about love are much different than those of Millay and the effectiveness of “Let me not to the marriage of true minds” is greatly weakened by its unachievable ideality. The differentiating opinions of the writers aid their path to coming to their own epiphanies.

    Read More

  • William Shakespeare and Edmund Spenser

    759 Words  | 2 Pages

    From the works of William Shakespeare and Edmund Spenser it is clear that some similarities are apparent, however the two poets encompass different writing styles, as well as different topics that relate to each other in their own unique ways. In Shakespeare’s “Sonnet 18” and Spenser’s “Sonnet 75”, both poets speak of love in terms of feelings and actions by using different expressive views, allowing the similar topics to contain clear distinctions. Although Edmund Spenser’s “Sonnet 75” and William Shakespeare’s “Sonnet 18” relate in the sense that love is genuine and everlasting, Spenser suggests love more optimistically, whereas Shakespeare focuses on expressing the beauty and stability of love.

    Read More

  • Love In A Midsummer Night's Dream By William Shakespeare

    150 Words  | 1 Pages

    Love is a word that is often times thrown around without any meaning attached to it whatsoever. This phenomena is usually seen amongst teenagers and young adults as they use love to describe their unexplained feelings for their significant other. This presents a problem because young people can mistake love for different emotion which leads to an unauthentic relationship. In the play, “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” William Shakespeare addresses the different meanings the word love can possess, while simultaneously giving hints as to how love should manifest. In addition to all this, Shakespeare’s thoughts and ideas on love not only give insight about his time period, they also span a myriad of generations and remain true to this day. Shakespeare,

    Read More

  • Theme Of Sonnet 130

    520 Words  | 2 Pages

    Like many of his sonnets, Shakespeare's Sonnet 130 takes a conventional, even clichéd, observation about love and gives it a fresh rhetorical presentation, thus gaining the double advantage of a universal context in which the poem can be understood, and the ability to preserve the individual voice. Key to the fresh presentation of this poem is the way it draws attention to the clichéd quality of the images it uses, using them for the purpose of contrast rather than assenting to them. “My Mistres eyes are nothing like the sunne,” the speaker declares. Devoting two quatrains to discussing her appearance (the first from a more distant perspective, the second focusing on the way her “cheekes” and “breath” appear from close up) and a third to the grace of her actions, the speaker follows his initial negative comparison with seven more. He is obliged to admit that his “Mistres” is neither white as snow nor has she cheeks like roses, nor can any of the idealizing similes of conventional love poetry apply properly to her.

    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

  • Love In A Midsummer Night's Dream

    1022 Words  | 3 Pages

    A Midsummer Night’s Dream, one of Shakespeare’s “High Comedy” plays, contains the following line: “the course of true love never did run smooth” (Shakespeare, 196). This truth resonates throughout Shakespeare’s sonnets, as real love is not all looks of longing and quiet desire, despite what poets such as Petrarch would have one believe. In reality, love is far more complex, with both positive and negative facets. Throughout the sonnets, Shakespeare provides keen insight into the true nature of love; positive connotations are rarely used in his description of love, instead Shakespeare describes it as war, disease, and madness. Through the speaker in his sonnets, Shakespeare explores love as a multifaceted entity, painting an authentic portrait

    Read More

  • Shakespeare Mistress Diction

    730 Words  | 2 Pages

    Love can be expressed in a variety of ways. In this sonnet Shakespeare compares the lady who he calls his mistress with certain things. Shakespeare wrote this sonnet to explain to the reader about his “Mistress” and why he thinks his love is rare for her. Shakespeare used different ways in his poem to explain how his “Mistress” was not the usual but he still loved her in a special way.

    Read More

  • Critical Appreciation Of Sonnet 130 Shakespeare

    869 Words  | 2 Pages

    In traditional love poems women are portrayed with having impractical features. Many times women are said to have roses in their cheeks, or that their breath smelled of perfume. The speaker declares, “no such roses see I in her cheeks. (6)” This image shows that Shakespeare is trying to convey the message that it is impossible for humans to have abstract qualities that romanticists would use. “Ironically, he still uses the stock imagery of love poetry—such as roses, perfume, and music to describe his love. As before, however, they are used in the most unexpected way and with a dramatic timing that fully draws out their element of surprise. (Woolway)” When Shakespeare describes his mistress’ breath, he uses the word “reeks”. Reeks, a word that might impress a horrid sense of smell on the present day reader was, in Shakespeare’s time, a word that just meant to emit a smell. I conclude by noticing the elusive effect of Shakespeare’s Sonnets. I find it difficult to read more than three at a single sitting, and as an entire collection they seem always about two steps beyond reach. They have a habit of breaking free from any interpretative system that tries to contextualize or control them and, however well one might think one is familiar with them, it is very much the case that I can always open my copy of Shakespeare’s Sonnets at random and quickly encounter one of them as though for the very first time. As a friend of mine once said, “if you think you have exhausted a sonnet by Shakespeare, it is you yourself who is exhausted.” Tidy and concentrated as the Sonnets seem, they are always ready and willing to break

    Read More

More about Shakespeare Figurative Language

Open Document