Use Of Metaphors In Petrarch's Sonnet 126

701 Words2 Pages

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

Show More
Related

  • A Poetry Explication

    1329 Words  | 3 Pages

    "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.

    Read More

  • Billy Collins Sonnet Analysis

    1212 Words  | 3 Pages

    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 with 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 poems venture through different techniques to appear individually different from the classic sonnet, the theme of love makes the poems analogous.

    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

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

    1192 Words  | 3 Pages

    Petrarch's "Sonnet 292" is composed in the Italian 14-line poem structure comprising an eight-line octave. It also contains six-line sestet. The fundamental characteristics for the Petrarchan poem structure is the two-part structure. To attain this, the author divides the eight-line octave into two four-line stanzas and the sestet into two three-line stanzas. This structure takes into account improvement of two parts of the subject, expanding the point of view of the piece. While some rhyme plot remains after the interpretation of the lyric from Italian, it does not provide the correct representation of the definitive complexity of Petrarch's work that was indispensable to putting across his mess...

    Read More

  • Free Essay: Metaphors in Sonnet 73

    486 Words  | 1 Pages

    "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.

    Read More

  • Comparing and Contrasting Shakespeare's Sonnet 130 and Clause McKay's The Harlem Dancer

    603 Words  | 2 Pages

    The speaker uses metaphors to describe his mistress’ eyes to being like the sun; her lips being red as coral; cheeks like roses; breast white as snow; and her voices sounding like music. In the first few lines of the sonnet, the speaker view and tells of his mistress as being ugly, as if he was not attracted to her. He give...

    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

  • A Critical Analysis Of Niccolo Machiavelli's The Prince

    777 Words  | 2 Pages

    In Petrarch’s sonnet III, page 1621, Petrarch is describing how he fell in love with his muse Laura who was a married woman. The first stanza describes how on the anniversary of Christ’s crucifixion, Petrarch first sees Laura; his love, and falls helplessly in love. He claims that he did not fight the feelings and becomes devoted to her. Petrarch continues in his second stanza to describe how he welcomed his new found love without fear and pursued his feelings with confidence. However, that is when his misfortune began. Because Laura was married, she could not return his love and therefore Petrarch takes the role of the lover who cannot be loved in return. By the third stanza, Petrarch describes how his love found him vulnerable and is responsible

    Read More

  • Sonnet Analysis - Fair Is My Love, by Edmund Spenser

    1276 Words  | 3 Pages

    This sonnet is an anti-love poem that ironically shows how the fairness of a lady is contingent upon nature's blessings and her external manifestations.  The Spenserian style brings unity to this sonnet, in that it's theme and rhyme is interwoven throughout, but the focus of her "fairness" is divided into an octave and a sestet.  The first eight lines praise her physical features (hair, cheeks, smile), while the last six lines praise her internal features (words, spirit, heart).  This sonnet intentionally hides the speaker's ridicule behind counterfeit love-language, using phrases like: "fair golden hairs" (line 1), and "rose in her red cheeks" (line 3), and "her eyes the fire of love does spark" (line 4).  This traditional love language fills pages of literature and song, and has conventionally been used to praise the attributes of a lover; but this sonnet betrays such language by exhibiting a critique rather than commendation. This sonnet appears to praise the beauty of a lady but ironically ridicules her by declaring that her "fairness" is contingent upon nature, physical features, and displaying a gentle spirit, which hides her pride.

    Read More

  • An Analysis of Shakespeare's Sonnet 116

    544 Words  | 2 Pages

    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...

    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

  • Essay On Petrarchan Sonnet

    705 Words  | 2 Pages

    Lackluster love is the subject postulated in both sonnets, Petrarch 90 and Shakespeare 130. This is a love that endures even after beauteous love has worn off, or in Petrarch, a love that never was. The Petrarchan sonnet utilizes fantasy to describe love. It depicts love that is exaggerated and unrealistic. Shakespeare’s sonnet, on the other hand, is very sarcastic but it is more realistic as compared to the Petrarch 90. Petrarchan sonnets, also called Italian sonnets were the first sonnets to be written, and they have remained the most common sonnets (Hollander 28). They were named after the Italian poet Petrarch. Its structure takes the form of two stanzas, the first one an octave, in that, it has eight lines, and the next stanza is a sestet, meaning that it has six lines. The rhyme scheme suits the Italian language, which has the feature of being rhyme rich, and it, can take the forms of abbaabba, cdcdcd, or cdecde. These sonnets present an answerable charge in the first stanza, and a turn in the sestet. The sestet is the counter argument of the octave.

    Read More

  • Sonnets 18 and 130: Defending and Defying the Petrarchan Convention

    1240 Words  | 3 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • Comparison: Petrarchan and Shakespearean Sonnets

    1199 Words  | 3 Pages

    The leading major contrast between the two poems is revealed in the difference in structure for their pieces. Petrarch's "Sonnet 292" is composed in the Italian 14-line poem structure comprising an eight-line octave. It also contains six-line sestet. The fundamental characteristics for the Petrarchan poem structure is the two-part structure. To attain this, the author divides the eight-line octave into two four-line stanzas and the sestet into two three-line stanzas. This structure takes into account improvement of two parts of the subject, expanding the point of view of the piece. While some rhyme plot remains after the interpretation of the lyrics from Italian, it does not provide a correct representation of the definitive complexity of Petrarch's work and message found in the original Italian form of the sonnet (McLaughlin). The...

    Read More

  • Shakespeare's Sonnet 18

    820 Words  | 2 Pages

    During the Renaissance period, most poets were writing love poems about their lovers/mistresses. The poets of this time often compared love to high, unrealistic, and unattainable beauty. Shakespeare, in his sonnet 18, continues the tradition of his time by comparing the speakers' love/mistress to the summer time of the year. It is during this time of the year that the flowers and the nature that surround them are at there peak for beauty. The theme of the poem is to show the speakers true interpretation of beauty. Beauties worst enemy is time and although beauty might fade it can still live on through a person's memory or words of a poem. The speaker realizes that beauty, like the subject of the poem, will remain perfect not in the eyes of the beholder but the eyes of those who read the poem. The idea of beauty living through the words of a poem is tactfully reinforced throughout the poem using linking devices such as similes and metaphors.

    Read More

More about Use Of Metaphors In Petrarch's Sonnet 126

Open Document