‘pale as deadly pale’.
‘My mistresses eyes are nothing like the sun ’ although it does not convey a nice picture uses imagery to express the ordinariness of the dark lady. ‘ Villegiature’ although in a dream world gives us a picture of
‘pear-tree bloom, White-curtained shone’.
‘Sonnet 18’ passion is conveyed through complementing imagery by creating an angel like image of the man;
‘his gold complexion’
and
‘every fair from fair’.
To create imagery the poets use a mixture of similes; ‘My face turned pale as deadly pale’ (First Love), rhetorical questions; ‘How do I love thee? Let me count the ways (How Do I Love Thee?), caesura’s; ‘yet well I know That music hath a far more pleasing sound’ (My mistresses eyes are nothing like the sun), metaphors; ‘Word’s from my eyes did start’ (First Love), and alliteration.
‘How do I Love Thee?’, ‘My mistresses eyes are nothing like the sun’ and ‘Sonnet 18’ are all sonnets. When the sonnets are split into 3 quatrains the three first verses have the same rhyme scheme; they rhyme every second line. The last two lines form a rhyming couplet; ‘…see’ and ‘…thee’ (Sonnet 18) and in Sonnet 18 the rhyming couplet applies irony to the poem;
‘I did not-till your ghost had fled-
Remember how you always bore me’
The sonnets have ten-syllable lines and use the iambic pentameter. The sonnets rhyme scheme makes the poems more romantic as the iambic pentameter seems like a heartbeat.
In comparison ‘First Love’ and ‘Villegiature’ are formed with stanzas. ‘First Love’ has three stanzas of eight lines and the poem rhymes every second line. ‘Villegiature’ contains four stanzas of four lines and the poem also rhymes every second line. Here the poets have made the poem flow through use of a rhythmic rhyme scheme. This makes the reader breathe regularly and therefore softly. This impersonates love.
The five love poems also incorporate the same themes in different ways. The poems ‘First Love’, ‘How do I Love Thee?’ and ‘Sonnet 18’ all use false compare to describe their passionate love for someone. They compare their loved ones to nature, ‘Her face it bloomed like a sweet flower’ (First Love), ‘Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May’ (Sonnet 18). By comparing them to nature the poets make their loved ones seem extremely beautiful and gentle.
The poets of First Love and Sonnet 18 compare their loved ones to suffering or sadness, ‘blood burnt round my heart’ (First Love). First Love also shows the effects of falling in love for the first time and experiencing the agony of losing your heart. This shows us the agonies of love and how much they love the person. However, they also compare their loved ones with “wonderfulness”. This is to show the readers how beautiful their love is and how they will love them in whatever light.
How do I love thee? presents love as a measurable list whilst First love, although it describes passionate love, shows the readers of lost love and painful experiences through a narrative account. Sonnet 18 characterises love to appear supernatural and the poet compares the loved one with nature to such an extent that they appear to be a god.
‘My mistresses eyes are nothing like the sun’ however, rejects all the usual exaggerations and extreme comparisons. Shakespeare follows no particular theme except to belittle the false compare by stating that even though she has her faults he still loves her. Shakespeare makes the lady sound different from the normal poetic ‘angels’ by comparing her to reality;
‘If hairs be wire, black wires grow on her head’.
Here Shakespeare is laying out how simple a person she is and he shows that no matter what she’s like he still loves her. He presents love as loving people with and for their faults.
‘Villegiature’ is a poem that is entirely different from the others. It describes a dream involving the poets former lover and it shows the readers how dreams can let your mind wander. The poet describes the lover’s actions. She compares him to nature;
‘ …framed in pear-tree blossom’,
and praises him. However, at some point in every stanza she states that he was ‘uninvited’ or he had ‘hardly missed me’. In this poem the poet shows love to be all a fantasy and she shows that it is never as wonderful as one might fantasise it to be.
The three poems ‘How do I love Thee?’, ‘First Love’ and ‘Sonnet 18’ all express the same type of passionate love. Whilst ‘My mistresses eyes are nothing like the sun’ and ‘Villegiature’ expresses different kinds of love. ‘My mistresses eyes are nothing like the sun’ expresses a realistic love whilst ‘Villegiature’ expresses a shortly forgotten love. The poets convey love by setting out the poems in certain ways to produce a mood suitable for their kind of love.
