arkodeb gangopadhyay, calcutta university, m.a [1st class]
4. WHAT LITERARY DEVICES ARE USED BY SHAKESPEARE TO PUT FORTH HIS IDEAS IN SONNET-130?
IS HE COMPLETELY ANTI-PETRARCHAN? [16]
1st part
The language spoken and written of great romances is often poetic, passionate, and filled with metaphors of beauty and devotion. In short, the language of love is the language of exaggeration. William Shakespeare ‘s most powerful description of love is when he satirizes this method of writing and in so doing instead claims that honesty and sincerity are the greatest literary devices when speaking the language of love. Shakespeare's sonnet number 130 demonstrates this. This sonnet hooks the reader from the very outset while maintaining sonnet structure and using literary devices as a source of irony.
Shocking the reader by using an unconventional method of satire to introduce a topic is the most effective way to hook an audience. Shakespeare begins his sonnet with the line; "My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun -" (line 1). The reader immediately becomes curious to the poet’s reasoning for speaking in this tone. The first quatrain of this poem introduces the topic of beauty.The second quatrain enhances the topic and adds sentiment. In the first quatrain he describes the looks of his mistress, while in the second quatrain he relates how these looks affect him. The third quatrain releases this sentiment, the narrator concludes that he is aware of the ordinary nature of his mistress. The sonnet also satirizes literary devices such as metaphors and similes to enhance its theme. Conventionally,metaphors and similes are used in love poems as a tool to express praise. The speaker in sonnet 130 proves his love by telling his beloved that none of these metaphors or similes apply to her since they are exaggerations.
Misusing metaphors adds to the comedic value of the sonnet and sets a satirical tone. But when the literary devices change, the tone changes from satire to authentic language. This change in tone and language takes place in the couplet, By abandoning literary devices for sincerity the narrator has concluded his theme; that sincerity and realism is worth more than false comparisons. While his theme is of a serious nature, accessing it from a satirical point of view is an effective method to access his theme. This is because the literary devices used are a source of comedic energy that shock the reader enough to find this piece of literature memorable.
2nd part
In his Sonnet 130, Shakespeare was parodying a poetic tradition established by the Italian poet Francesco Petrarch who wrote a series of love poems to a woman named Laura. love in the Petrarchan tradition, was spiritual rather than physical.There is passionate admiration but no trace of eroticism.
Petrarch popularized a technique called the blazon - a feature by feature description of the woman using extravagant hyperbole. Edmund Spenser also employed the Petrarchan blazon in his "Epithalamion" .Similarly, Philip Sidney’s Stella and Bartholomew Griffin’s Fidessa are women whose beauties are over the top and ethereal.
On the other hand, spoofing Petrarchan hyperbole ,the lady-love of sonnet 130 is a creature of flesh and blood with the imperfections that may not be seen in goddesses but are attendant on humanity.
However, Shakespeare’s unflattering description of his beloved and the realistic assessment of her physical attributes are reversed by the sincerity of his declaration that he finds her more rare and wondrous than any woman who has been glorified by the false comparisons of the older courtly love tradition.
By Shakespeare's time, the courtly love and Petrarchan traditions with all the blazoning and use of hyperbole had become the targets of satire. This sonnet by Shakespeare and Andrew Marvell's To His Coy Mistress stand out as the best known examples of anti-Petrarchanism in English literature.