What Figurative Language Is Used In Sonnet 18?

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These lines use two types of figurative language: personification and metaphor . Personification is when human qualities are assigned to inanimate beings or objects.

What metaphors are in Sonnet 18?

Where is the metaphor in Sonnet 18? Comparing the lover’s beauty to an eternal summer, “But thy eternal summer shall not fade” (line nine) is a metaphor inside the sonnet- long extended metaphor . Along with the extended metaphor running throughout the whole sonnet, Shakespeare also uses imagery.

Are similes or metaphors used in Sonnet 18?

Although the whole poem comes close to being an extended simile, there are no actual similes in Shakespeare’s Sonnet 18. There are, however, several metaphors, comparing the short length of summer to a short-term lease on a house, the course of nature to that of a ship, and the sun to an eye and a face.

What literary devices are used in Sonnet 18?

The main literary device used in Sonnet 18 is metaphor . It also uses rhyme, meter, comparison, hyperbole, litotes, and repetition.

How are metaphors used purposefully in Sonnet 18?

When he says “thy eternal summer shall not fade,” he uses a metaphor that suggests she will always be young to him, that she has a glow and vitality that will be everlasting . He personifies Death, claiming “he” will never claim his lover, that she will never die but always live (metaphorically) in his heart.

Is Sonnet 18 about a man?

Sonnet 18 refers to a young man . It is one of Shakespeare’s Fair Youth sonnets (1–126), which were all written to a man that Shakespeare urged...

What is the main idea of Sonnet 18?

Shakespeare uses Sonnet 18 to praise his beloved’s beauty and describe all the ways in which their beauty is preferable to a summer day. The stability of love and its power to immortalize someone is the overarching theme of this poem.

Why is Sonnet 18 so famous?

Shakespeare’s Sonnet 18 is so famous, in part, because it addresses a very human fear : that someday we will die and likely be forgotten. The speaker of the poem insists that the beauty of his beloved will never truly die because he has immortalized her in text.

Is personification used in Sonnet 18?

Shakespeare’s famous Sonnet 18 contains several fine examples of personification (the application of human characteristics to nonhuman beings or objects). ... Both summer and the sun are personified here. Nature, too, is personified, for it has a “changing course untrimm’d” that makes even the fair ones decline.

What is the imagery of Sonnet 18?

The imagery of the Sonnet 18 include personified death and rough winds . The poet has even gone further to label the buds as ‘darling’ (Shakespeare 3). Death serves as a supervisor of ‘its shade,’ which is a metaphor of ‘after life’ (Shakespeare 11). All these actions are related to human beings.

Is there assonance in Sonnet 18?

Assonance is repetition of vowel sounds within words that are close to each other. One example in “Sonnet 18” is the long “a ” sound in “shake” and “May” in line three. ... You can hear assonance in the long i sound in lines 5, 7, 8, and 9 (eye, shines, sometime, declines, by, thy).

What is the personification in Sonnet 18?

“Nor shall Death brag thou wander’st in his shade”. This line contains a personification: Death can brag . This is impossible for everything that is not a human.

What is the sound devices of Sonnet 18?

With repetition, assonance, alliteration and internal and end rhyme , the reader is certainly treated to a range of device that creates texture, music and interest. Note the language of these lines: rough, shake, too short, Sometimes, too hot, often, dimmed, declines, chance, changing, untrimmed.

How is Death personified in Sonnet 18?

Tamara K. H. In line 11 of Shakespeare’s Sonnet 18, death is personified as someone who can “brag” about the souls he has taken in death to the underworld similarly to how the god Hades takes souls to the underworld.

Who is the speaker in Sonnet 18?

The speaker in both sonnets is a man (presumably) who does not care about what a woman looks like, only how beautiful she is inside. He is mature enough to overlook physicality and focus on the sort of beauty that withstands the test of time.

What line from Sonnet 18 is a simile?

D. Shakespeare’s Sonnet 18 comes close to being an extended simile , without ever quite being one. A poem which said “ You are like a summer’s day, in the following ways ” would clearly be a simile on the same expansive scale as Homer’s comparisons.

Amira Khan
Author
Amira Khan
Amira Khan is a philosopher and scholar of religion with a Ph.D. in philosophy and theology. Amira's expertise includes the history of philosophy and religion, ethics, and the philosophy of science. She is passionate about helping readers navigate complex philosophical and religious concepts in a clear and accessible way.