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How and why does Shakespeare use comparisons in Sonnet 130?

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In Sonnet 130, Shakespeare uses comparisons to parody traditional love poetry, specifically Petrarchan sonnets. The speaker describes his mistress using physical comparisons that seem to belittle her, contrasting the idealized features often found in love poetry. However, the final lines reveal that this love is more unique and genuine because it's not based on clichéd comparisons. The sonnet also asserts the speaker's originality and impatience with trite, conventional comparisons, culminating in a call for honest and truthful poetry.

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Similes and metaphors are two of the most powerful weapons in the arsenal of any poet, and Shakespeare certainly uses them quite effectively in sonnet 130 (which begins “My mistress’s eyes are nothing like the sun”). Similes make comparisons by using the words “like” or “as”; metaphors almost identify or equate the two things compared and thus omit such words as “like” or “as”

In the first line of Shakespeare’s sonnet, the speaker wittily disavows the tired, standard, conventional simile comparing a woman’s eyes to the sun. Indeed, throughout this poem, the speaker refutes or denies the kinds of trite comparisons that poets had often made between their beloveds and various material objects. The speaker thereby asserts his own originality as well as his impatience with shop-worn poetic clichés. If a woman deserves to be praised physically, she also deserves to be described honestly, or at least that is one...

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of the implications to be drawn from the phrasing of this poem. Thus, in line 4, the speaker mocks the standardmetaphor equating the blond hairs on a woman’s head with golden wires; instead, he confesses that “If hairs be wires, black wires grown on her [that is, his mistress’s] head.” Ironically, the poet contributes to the beauty or effectiveness of his own poem by denying his mistress the kind of stale, predictable praise she might have received from other poets.

Again and again, the speaker mocks the kinds of comparisons used by previous poets to praise their lovers. The first twelve lines of the sonnet amount to a point-by-point rejection of many of the standard metaphors and similes of English and European love poetry: His mistress’s cheeks are not like roses; her breath is not like perfume; her speech is not like music; and her movement is not like the flowing movement of a goddess:

I grant [that is, admit] I never saw a goddess go [that is, walk];
My mistress, when she walks, treads of the ground.  (11-12)

Finally, in the concluding couplet of the poem, the speaker announces that he nevertheless considers his mistress

. . . as rare
As any she [that is, any woman] belied [that is, misrepresented] with false compare. (13-14)

The final two words of the sonnet – “false compare” – make explicit the speaker’s concern with illegitimate similes and bogus metaphors. The sonnet is as much about the writing of true, honest, trustworthy poetry as it is about the particular physical appearance of any particular woman. The poem amounts to a kind of manifesto, implicitly urging poets to tell the truth when they write and admonishing them to be willing to take genuine responsibility for the similes and metaphors they employ.

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