The poem "When my love swears that she is made of truth," (Shakespeare William, reprinted in Thomas R. Arp and Greg Jonhson, Perrine's Sound and Sense, 10th ed.[United States: Heinle &Heinle, 2002] 42) is about two lovers who are differ in age. The author is the older individual and his love is the younger one. Being younger than he is, she simply lies about his age to make him feel better and younger. Although he knows that she lies, he believes her and goes along with her. Despite the age difference, the two characters still love each other and live in harmony.
It is important for a writer to use connotation and denotation in his or her poems because it makes the writing more complex. In poems, it is important to use connotation because connotation are the associations that a word can bring to a readers mind. Connotation can bring a neutral, negative, or positive image or feelings. For example, the word childish is generally uses to describe a person when he or she acts immature. Denotation is equally important because it is a word that has more than one meaning within the sentence. One example can be the word "spring". Spring, in definition, can be a season, a coil, or a water spring. Therefore, using connotation and denotation in a poem can make the writing more sophisticated and fascinating. .
Shakespeare uses perfect examples of denotation in his poem. By reading the poem "When my love swears that she is made of truth," one can find many examples of words that have multiple meanings in the sentence. In line 1 for example, the word "swears" (L.1) applies to making a promise and using profanity. "Swears" means she promises that she is telling the truth. Also it could mean that she uses profanity to help .
convince her lover that she is honest. Another good example of denotation is the word "tongue."(7) Shakespeare uses the word "tongue" in the phrase "Simply I credit her false-speaking tongue" (7) to describe the lies that his love told to him.
