As one of the greatest wordsmiths of all time, William Shakespeare made powerful use of imagery to convey the themes and subject matter in his poetry and plays. This is displayed well in two of his more famous sonnets,My Mistress? Eyes Are Nothing Like the Sun? andThat Time Of Year Thou Mayest In Me Behold?. .
In the first quatrain ofMy Mistress? Eyes?? Shakespeare compared the features of his mistress to those of nature, seemingly mocking her looks, ("Coral is far more red than her lips' red"). In the second quatrain, he described her weak points using smell and in the third quatrain, he described her lack of a perfect voice (using sound). The images that these words put into our heads are very true to his idea that his woman means nothing compared to nature, one of the main points of his poem. These observations of Shakespeare's also put to shame the over the top ramblings of other authors odes of love to their women, the hidden meaning (purpose?) of the sonnet. .
Shakespeare also used figures of speech well to explain his subject matter. One he used was the title of the sonnet, ("My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun"). This figure of speech is an example of a simile, comparing the sun's shining beauty to that of his mistress? eyes which, when compared to the shining of the sun, do not live up to any false praise he might write. These similes give us an idea of what he is trying to put across, that his mistress has no where near the same beauty that nature possesses and also show us he is trying to mock the style of his contemporaries? love poems. .
In the second sonnet, Shakespeare used images of a forest in autumn, growing brown and dying. He uses the forest to describe how he feels about his life, wasting away and in its autumn-time. This metaphor is very powerful, as we all know how the forest dies as the world approaches winter. This powerful description works well to describe how he feels about his life and how he feels his creativity is starting to wane.