William Shakespeare Uses Irony, Imagery,

¶ … William Shakespeare uses irony, imagery, metaphors and various other literary devices to express his love for a woman who appears different than other woman of the time. In this paper and through an analysis of the poem we see how irony is used with particular effect in the final lines of the poem to emphasize the unique quality of the women or loved one being described.

The poem opens with what is on the surface an apparent contradiction. The poet states that;

My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun

The usual process in a love poem is to praise the loved one and the common poetic convention is to use metaphor and imagery to compare her beauty and other favorable characteristics to symbols of perfection in nature such as the sun and flowers. However in the very first line of this poet tends to contradict this convention by stating that his love is not comparable to the sun, which is usually an image of love's perfection.

The poem goes on to make further use of metaphor and imagery in this seemingly negative comparison.

Coral is far more red than her lips' red;

If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;

If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.

I have seen roses damask'd, red and white,

But no such roses see I in her cheeks;

In each of these metaphors the poet is clearly stating what his lover is not like. Her lips are not to be compared to the passionate red of coral, nor are her breasts snow white, but in comparison are dun or dull. Furthermore, she cannot be compared to the beauty of the rose, which is a common metaphor for love and beauty

What is already becoming evident as we read the poem is that the meaning of the poem is moving towards the suggestion that his love is incomparable or beyond comparison. In other words, in the adamant way in which the poet apparently derides his love there is also the suspicion that he is in fact praising her as being above all comparisons.

This suspicion becomes even more ironically clear as we read further. As we progress with the analysis of the protagonist's description of his love we find even more apparently negative comparisons. For example, he states that that in comparison to perfumes his "mistress reeks" and that music has a much more "pleasing sound" than her voice. He also states that she is no goddess in the lines,

I grant I never saw a goddess go;

My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground

However in the final couplet of the sonnet there is a dramatic change of tone and a radical change in our perception of the loved one. The final two lines read as follows.

And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare

As any she belied with false compare.

These two lines should be carefully considered as they ironically overturn the meaning and intention of the metaphorical comparisons that have been made throughout the body of the poem. The second last line begins with an ironic reversal of all that has been apparently stated about his love and is prefigured by the phrase " And yet…." The poet goes on to state that his love is "rare," which implies uniqueness and an individuality that "belies" all false comparisons. In other words, all comparisons are false and do not live up to the actual reality of his love.