Sonnet 130 and My Ugly Love Contrast and Comparison Shakespeare’s sonnet 130, “My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun” and Pablo Neruda’s “My ugly love” are popularly known to describe beauty in a way hardly anyone would write: through the truth. It’s a common fact that modern lovers and poets speak or write of their beloved with what they and the audience would like to hear, with kind and breathtaking words and verses. Yet, Shakespeare and Neruda, honest men as they both were, chose to write about what love truly is, it matters most what’s on the inside rather than the outside. The theme of true beauty and love are found through Shakespeare and Neruda’s uses of imagery, structure, and tone. The imagery portrayed in both
The speaker continues to use this technique until the last few lines when seals up again with “my ugly…my beauty...My Love…” Now that last bit is where the two separate lovers (the speaker’s beloved) close up as one, just like two crossroads merging into one road. In Shakespeare’s sonnet, there is a great amount of semi-colons presented such as, “…are nothing like the sun;…lips’ red;…breasts are dun;…cheeks;…sound;….go;..” These semi-colons help determine where the pauses must be taken into consideration and whether the verses continue or not. Overall, it helps with the structure of the verses within a quatrain. In the last couplet of Shakespeare’s sonnet, “and yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare,” the volta can be easily found because of the transition word, “yet”. In all, the structures of both sonnets help readers connect with what the speakers have to say about their beloveds. In final, the tone between Shakespeare and Neruda’s sonnets both unite with the truth, whether they may sound harsh at first, but later sound sweet. Starting off with Shakespeare, the speaker within the sonnet may sound downright critical in the first three quatrains for it may seem the dark lady has nothing but flaws, but after the volta, we find out that the speaker loves the dark lady. The tone from that point is appreciative, for the speaker gladly likes to input his honest critique about his beloved and is still convinced he loves her. Also, the tone may have been