The imagery used in Sonnet 130 is that of always comparing the woman in which Shakespeare is talking about to natural beauty.
Shakespeare is very strange and different in the way he describes his mistress in this sonnet.
This is because of the constant negative imagery used to describe his woman. He says that ‘my mistresses eyes are nothing like the sun’ that isn’t exactly complimenting on her eyes it is basically putting a downer to her appearance.
Right through this sonnet Shakespeare keeps picking and making fun of every aspect of his wife’s looks. The way in which this is done by Shakespeare is by firstly mentioning something that is of natural beauty and then saying that his wife is the complete opposite. An example in which Shakespeare does this is when he says ‘if snow be white, why then her breasts are dun’. He is saying that his mistress’s breasts are far from being snow white.
Shakespeare carries on with this negative imagery, he moves away from the visual side and goes onto the senses of hearing and smelling. Shakespeare says that her breath reeks and that her voice is far from being musical, so she is hard to talk to.
The whole tone of this sonnet is ironic. Shakespeare keeps talking about all her let downs when it comes to beauty and so compares it to something wonderful but then always brings it down. Shakespeare unlike other poets would usually say great things about there partners, so would describe them to such things as the sun. Shakespeare clearly loves this woman and so they are able to play about. This is why the tone of this sonnet is light-hearted and the imagery is devout and non-figurative in quality.
The imagery is about life and possessions. To set the mood there is definitely a great dependence on the sound effects to have that slight isolation and dejection around it. In this sonnet the octave talks about the overall decay of this area and the way everything around it seems to be decaying away. Then when we go onto the sestet it talks about the life of someone living in this area. This is where we find out about the harsh realities that behold this place, with unemployment and basically a really low standard of living. The line in the octave where it says, ‘mean wind wanders’. This is talking about the harshness of the surroundings. The anger of the people is personified by ‘hackles on puddles rise’ this is futility of the desolation. We can tell that this place is dead and gloomy this is expressed by the line ‘black block’, black is represents death and funerals, so this being put along with the block is showing that this place is attending its own funeral due to the neglect its facing.
In the sestet there is more examples of how the place has been neglected we can see that the lace is falling apart with the line, ‘the cracks deepen the rats crawl’. There are also examples of metaphors with, ’the kettle whimpers’. This kettle cant even whistle so all it can cope with is a whimper; just like the man barely being able to breathe while his coughs fall thinly showing that he is ill. We can see the state of mind of people in this area that with all the problems surrounding the people they have resorted to getting things which they need wrongfully, we can see this by the line, ‘the air is too poor to rob’.
These two sonnets both hold serious messages to them. Shakespeare seems to use light hearted lines with plenty of humour. This is to make all the other poets who think that they have to describe there partners to something beautiful or greater just to show there love that it is not really needed. Shakespeare has written this sonnet about a lady friend whom he obviously loves but this doesn’t necessarily mean that she is the most beautiful thing on the face of the earth. Shakespeare uses light hearted comedy to show his love towards his partner without lying.
The Glasgow sonnet really does hold a serious message which the poet is trying to get across to the people out there willing to listen. He feels that people have been ignoring these situations and the problems have become increasingly worse. The content of this poem has given a paradoxical look and it is all a part of social realism.
I feel that Sonnet 130 is very effective in the way Shakespeare puts his opinion across about his partner. The humour of the sonnet brings a more appealing feel to it. Although the problem with the sonnet is that message isn’t clear to see straight away, you have to look at the sonnet in more depth to see what message Shakespeare is trying to get across.
The Glasgow Sonnet has a very serious message to it and the way the writer uses metaphors and similes to describe the area that people have to suffer living in, is very effective and makes the reader think about the realities of life.
