Shakespeare is well known for his profound artistic language and style. He is known for writing sonnets describing love besides other themes complimented with a variety of stylistic devices (Bloom, 1987). This paper attempts to compare and contrast Sonnet 18 and 73 while pointing out instances where imagery is used to refer to human qualities by comparing them with nature. The two sonnets employ almost the same stylistic devices with differences coming out in the theme and the exact intended meaning of each sonnet. Thus, a thorough understanding is needed to contrast them.
In sonnet 18, the persona describes his reference character as being temperate and fair as nature itself. He goes to describe the many qualities of nature in an extensive manner to quantify the true meaning of the beauty of his reference character. This begins with the first line where he asks a rhetorical question whether to compare his character to nature and then goes on to do the comparison in the subsequent sentences. Furthermore, he goes on to describe his character’s beauty as being like summer. This is seen in line nine where he says that even though nature changes, his characters eternal summer like beauty does not change but lives on with the voice of men (Shakespeare et. al, 1997).
In sonnet 73 on line five, he describes his persona as having the twilight of a night where birds sing till late, and that the leaves of most plants have fallen while those few still hanging are yellow. This implies a faint quality of a heart that yearns for something it really longs for. A great unsatisfied longing. It can be described as a position he has adopted to describe the emptiness of missing something beautiful and good his heart has seen (Bloom, 1987). Hence, the effect can be compared to that of a person expressing his love for someone he has not yet found.
Looking at the two sonnets, they show a lot of similarities and differ in a number of ways. For instance, it is clear that in sonnet 18, the persona describes a character whose beauty is worth comparing to a cool summer day, and that the beauty never dies as described as long as man shall live to utter the words used in the description. This is significantly different in the message from sonnet 73. In this sonnet, the persona focuses on himself describing a person who is greatly longing for love, with a heart very determined to meet its longings. This is portrayed through line 9 in sonnet 73 where he says that in him is a fire of such character.
On the other hand, the two sonnets have a number of similarities they share. For instance, Shakespeare was very consistent in his use of imagery where he compared human qualities to that of nature. He uses nature to describe the beauty of his character in sonnet 18 and also to describe his persona’s longing heart and determination (Shakespeare et. al, 1997). Moreover, the two sonnets are similar in a structure having the same number of lines. This implies a similar structure in the construction of the lines. This is also quantified by the last two lines of each sonnet which create rhyme as seen in each of the last two words ending in an ‘ee’ in the sonnet 18 or an ‘ong’ in sonnet 73.
References
Bloom, H. (1987). Shakespeare's sonnets. New York: Chelsea House.
Shakespeare, W., Evans, G. B., & Tobin, J. J. M. (1997). The Riverside Shakespeare. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.
