Jacob Hammonds World Literature September 22 Poem Comparison

I have chosen to compare Sonnet 73 by Shakespeare, and Poem 1 by Sappho. Both poems use extensive metaphors to convey opposing perspectives on love. Although the poets are separated by nearly one thousand years, they both approach the subject of love by extensive use of metaphors, and the personification of of emotion to better describe its nature. Both poets deal the idea of love but portray the subject in different lights from different perspectives

Both poems feature a third party which is in play between the lover and the love object. In Poem 1 by Sappho the third party is the god Aphrodite. The first four and a half stanzas focus on Sappho's plea to Aphrodite to assist her in easing her love related sorrows. Sappho pays many compliments to Aphrodite and goes in to great detail describing her beauty. The love object is left ambiguous by Sappho which is curious given the immense attention given Aphrodite. This leads me to believe that the love object is more of an idea than necessarily an actual person. In the final line of the poem Sappho asks Aphrodite to be her lly in love's battle Perhaps Sappho's love object in the poem and and third party represent dual natures of the some idea. Aphrodite being the greek god of love, may be in the poem a metaphor for love. Sappho, not having a love object to project her love onto, pleads for love to find her. Sappho longs for no specific person but simply longs to participate in love regardless of it's form.

Like Sappho, Shakespeare doesn't clearly define his love object and employs three different metaphors to convey a specific perspective on love. The first stanza employs late fall as a metaphor. I

believe this alludes to the author's age, possible indicating the speaker was near the end of his life. Shakespeare then employs the imagery of a sunset and twilight to evoke the same notion of the previous metaphor. At this point the character of death appears in the poem. Death is described as seeing a dying fire in the speaker on which he ashes of his youth doth lieline 10). The speaker at this point is battling with the problem of death but reveals in line 14 his thou perceivest, which makes thy love more strong I interpret this as death being aware of its closeness to the speaker and loving the speaker because he knows they will be together soon. Death in this scenario is personified and romanticized to the point that it seems as if death has an unrequited love for the poet. This is possibly a play on the type of love introduced in troubadour love poems. is I believe that the poet is the love object of death, but the authors love object is life. A life that the last line indicates, will be over before long.

The ambiguity of Sappho's love object leads me to two possible conclusions. Either Sappho has no actual love object in mind or possible the poem is a confession to a loved one. It is a possibility that Sappho is using Aphrodite to convey a god like worship of her lover. In this scenario Sappho has a love relationship with the Aphrodite character but wants to transition into a romantic relationship with the character. Sappho's poem contains simpler metaphors than Shakespeare's, but the ambiguity of Sappho's poem seems to leave the poem more open to interpretation. Shakespeare poem's metaphors are more abstract but the specific combination of different metaphors make the meaning more defined.

In both poems the love objects are not sexualized and are treated more as ideals. Shakespeare relationship with death is presented as a noble unrequited love scenario reminiscent of troubadour love poems. Sappho greatly romanticizes her love object wether it be the ideal of love or an actual lover, but I don't find the poem overtly sexual in the way the greek poems were. Both poets use extensive metaphors through out the selected poems. I think Shakespeare's metaphors are more sophisticated than Sappho's. Given the fact that the poets are around one thousand years apart this is to be expected. I also

find given the time frame Sappho's poetry is incredibly advanced. Myself, not being a speaker of Sappho's native tongue some of the beauty of the original language is inherently lost on me. I found both poems interesting and the difference in perspectives and use of metaphor impressive in both poets writing.