Sonnet 116 and Valentine Comparison

Sonnet 116 and Valentine Comparison

  • Submitted By: ToniTavaro
  • Date Submitted: 03/01/2012 10:12 PM
  • Category: English
  • Words: 365
  • Page: 2
  • Views: 1

Sonnet 116 and Valentine have very conflicting views on love. Sonnet 116 uses the metaphor of “star” to suggest love gives guidance and is the light to everybody that is lost from love. However, Valentine uses the metaphor of the onion to show how “it will make your reflection a wobbling photo of grief” to show that love makes us cry and can blind us to reality, which contradicts the view of Sonnet 116.

Both poems use different techniques to show their certainty of their message. The poet of Sonnet 116 puts his own reputation at stake by saying, “If this be error… I never writ,” This means that if what he says is proved wrong, then everything he has written is a lie, which suggests that the poet is very confident in what he is saying about love. Valentine uses modal verbs like “It will” and “will cling” to show that love can be devastating to the heart and the poet uses these modal verbs to show the certainty of the message the poet is trying to get across.

In both poems, the poets use a lot of imagery to convey love in a positive way – In Valentine they say, “It is a moon wrapped in brown paper” to suggest love is a gift, and uses the Moon to show that it is special and provides light in some way. This may be seen as hope, or guidance, which is similar to Sonnet 116 as it uses the metaphor of “star” to again, suggest guidance and hope.

In Sonnet 116 the structure is simply one entire stanza so show how love is unchanged and will not change, whereas Valentine uses standalone stanzas to catch the readers’ eye and express how love is not always as stereotypical as we think by using the word “not” in the beginning of it.

In conclusion, Sonnet 116 and Valentine have very different views of love; Valentine sees love as being not very conventional, and uses the metaphor of an onion to show that it can be unexpected and disappointing, whereas Sonnet 116 uses an alternate rhyming to show that love is a constant thing and flows...

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