In the first quatrain in sonnet 18 Shakespeare compares his love to a summer’s day. He is saying that the one he loves is “more lovely and more temperate…”. Shakespeare goes on to say that beauty sometimes declines due to chance or “nature’s course untrimmed” and that beautiful things do lose beauty. However in the third quatrain he claims that his love will never lose the beauty by saying “But thy eternal summer shall not fade…”. The poem is concluded by “…So long lives this, and this gives life to thee” which means that as long as the poem is read people will know how beautiful his love was and this keeps the beauty from fading or being less beautiful.
In sonnet 130, in the first quatrain Shakespeare talks about her eyes being “nothing like the sun” and coral being “far more red” than her lips. He continues in the same vain throughout quatrains two and three, claiming that the breath form his mistress “reeks” and that he doesn’t see roses in her cheeks. The last verse, the couplet, takes a turn however and Shakespeare explains his love that she doesn’t need false comparisons she is beautiful to him “…As any she belied with false compare.”
In both sonnets Shakespeare makes references to beauty, whether comparing to a summer’s day or talking about appearances of her cheeks and lips. He also uses the couplet at the end of the sonnet to make a final point and conclude the poem. He also talks about heaven, “And yet, by heaven” and “the eye of heaven”. He also talks about colour in sonnet 18 he mentions the “gold complexion” and in sonnet 130 he talks about “red and white” roses and “black wires”.
However there is one main difference the fact that in sonnet 18 he talks about how beautiful his love is and he compares it to a summer’s day, but in sonnet 130 he says that his love is nothing like any of the objects he mentions. The other difference is that in the couplet at the end in sonnet 18 he just sums up what he has been saying and draws the sonnet to an end whereas in sonnet 130 he uses the couplet at the end to change the sonnet around and explain the poem.
YOU MAKE SOME VALID POINTS OF COMPARISON. COULD YOU ADD SOMETHING ABOUT THE WAY THE FIRST POEM RATHER IDEALISES THE NOTION OF LOVE WHERE THE SECOND IS MUCH MORE DIRECT AND HONEST? CAN YOU PICK OUT EXAMPLES OF THE LANGUAGE THAT TELL YOU THIS?