Sonnets

What are five different literary devices used in the sonnet below?

MY TRUE LOVE HATH MY HEART AND I HAVE HIS
My true love hath my heart and I have his,
By just exchange one for the other given:
I hold his dear, and mine he cannot miss,
There never was a better bargain driven.
When lofty trees I see barren of leaves,
Which erst from heat did canopy the herd,
And summer’s green all girded up in sheaves,
Borne on the bier with white and bristly beard,
Then of thy beauty do I question make,
That thou among the wastes of time must go,
Since sweets and beauties do themselves forsake
And die as fast as they see others grow;
And nothing ’gainst Time’s scythe can make defense
Save breed, to brave him when he takes thee hence.

1. alliteration - in the first line, "h" is repeated several times (hath, heart, have, his); also evident in several other lines

2. personification - "Time's scythe" in the 13th line makes Time sound like a human that can hold a scythe and that marks the passage of time by cutting years away

3. antithesis - opposite ideas or images opposed to one another - "And summer’s green all girded up in sheaves,
Borne on the bier with white and bristly beard," - the green youthful beauty of summer versus the white bristly winter (old age - beard)

4. metaphor - the sonnet is a metaphor for the fact that all youth must eventually become old:
"Then of thy beauty do I question make,
That thou among the wastes of time must go,
Since sweets and beauties do themselves forsake
And die as fast as they see others grow;"

5. rhyme/iambic pentameter/sonnet - Don't forget the 14-line sonnet format used by Shakespeare - this is also a literary device. The first 12 lines are broken into 3 quatrains (stanzas of 4 lines each), with their rhyme scheme (abab cdcd efef); then the final two lines are a rhyming couplet (gg), which usually wraps up the ideas contained in the rest of the sonnet.

Check the link below for more information on these and other literary devices! Good luck!

http://www.enotes.com/literary-terms