Esmeralda Vidovich

English 305-03
Professor Dr. Huth
March 26, 2015
Shakespeares meaning of Love
In Sonnets73 and 130 by William Shakespeare we are introduced to his version of love
poems. These poems are not the usual ones we read. Shakespeare thought common love poems
were ridiculous because they spoke of women as goddess and not how human they really are.
Unlike in these two Sonnets, Shakespeare does the opposite. He leaves out all the flowery
language and focuses on how love is in reality or at least in his life. Sonnet 73 allows the
reader to see that although the speaker is old, he can still be loved, and Sonnet 130 shares the
same concept but this time the speaker talks about his mistresss flaws and how he loves her no
matter what. Although they are both about love, the connotations of each are different. In
Sonnet 73 love represents the affection of the two people becoming stronger due to the
speakers age that reflect his death, however, in Sonnet 130 the word represents the speakers
lover as wonderful as the ideal women that is often shown through poetry.
Sonnet 73 focuses on the idea of growing old and having self-pity. However, after the
volta in lines 13 and 14, the speaker introduces a different idea that relates to the first one of
aging. Line 13 reads, This thou perceiv'st, which makes thy love more strong. The beginning
of the couplet in line 13 moves the poem in a different direction. In the first three quatrains, the
speaker overwhelms the reader talking about life, death, and aging. The couplet allows us to see
the resolution or possibly a different idea to the poem. Although the speaker is going through

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tough times realizing that he is aging, his lover sees it as a well to make the relationship even
better.
In the same way, line 14 reads, To love that well which thou must leave ere long. This
final line is essential because the speaker is now telling the reader that the love between them
will become stronger and more valuable after his aging because he is closer to death. The word
well in the line is an example of the speakers significant other that regardless of his age she
will appreciate him more too. In this couplet, Shakespeare leaves us with a message that love
will hold both persons until death does them apart.
While Sonnet 73 is based on the Speaker and his negative aspects about aging, Sonnet
130 continues this idea by switching the characters and now looking at the flaws of his lover.
After the volta in line 13 and 14 of Sonnet 130, And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare
As any she belied with false compare, we get a twist like the first Sonnet. After having the
speaker talk about all her flaws and possibly things a woman would hate to hear from a man, he
ends by saying that his lover is rare to find because shes human and not a goddess. For this
reason, he says that she is also wonderful like any other women who had been compared to
something they really are not when they are described in poetry. After reading the first three
quatrains from lines 1 to 12, readers can assume that this poem is not going to end well.
However, these two lines are the resolution of the whole poem and give it its meaning or theme.
Essentially, the speaker makes a point that he is not like other people who does poetry. Instead,
he creates the idea of love being more valuable and real by not using flowery language to
compare his lovers characteristics. He lets his mistress know that she completes him and loves
her for who she is.

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Along with the twist that the couplets in the Sonnets have, both share a message that
someone can still love another person who is not ideal in the matter of aging or physical
appearance. In addition, they both have the same form and meter of a Shakespearean sonnet. In
Sonnet 73, the three different ideas shared in the quatrains serve as one large message at the
end which is aging. The message is first shown in the beginning of the poem the first quatrain.
The line says, That time of year thou mayst in me behold When yellow leaves, or none, or
few, do hang. The speaker emphasizes his aging when he uses the words in me making a
clear statement that in him people see the time of the year when yellow leaves hang or in other
words the season of fall or winter. The second quatrain uses the idea of twilight, it says, In me
thou seest the twilight of such day. Again the speaker uses the words In me to argue how
close he is to death. The third quatrain indicates the metaphor of fire, That on the ashes of his
youth doth lie. This line means that he once was alive, and that period was when he was in his
youth. Lastly, in the couplet he makes the resolution about love.
In Sonnet 130 we also have a very specific form. Both sonnets are 14 lines long and are
written in iambic pentameter. They both have a volta which is another word for a turn in the
poem. In both poems, we have a significant change at this point that changes the perspective of
the reader. The volta comes in the last two lines of the poem, lines 13 and 14, where Shakespeare
makes a drastic switch and changes his idea into a more in depth message. In Sonnet 130, the
speaker is critiquing his mistress all along but then at this point in the volta he starts confessing
how much he adores her. In addition, the rhyme scheme is usually ABABCDCDEFEF and then
GG at the end. The two letters at the end GG are significant and make the different between
other sonnets. This indeed is the couplet. For example, the end of Sonnet 130, And yet, by
heaven, I think my love as rare (G) As any she belied false compare (G) is the couplet. In

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Sonnet 73, the couplet reads, This thou perceivst, which makes they love more strong, (G)
To love that well which thou must leave ere long (G).
The two Sonnets by Shakespeare serve as an eye opener to see how different his style of
writing poetry was from other poets in that era. Generally his poems were about love, and with
these sonnets we see the two sides of the speakers meaning about love. In Sonnet 73,
Shakespeare writes to give the impression that although he feels old, his lover still loves me
regardless, and in Sonnet 130, we get the opposite where he still loves her even though she is
not the ideal women that many poets write about. By putting these two poems together we get a
sense of Shakespeares personality and how loving another person needs to balance out. Loving a
significant other has to be both of them working together, not only one showing their affection.
We see how both, not only one have unconditional love that is stronger than what love is put out
in society.