Duality, Opposites, and Paradoxes

As Neruda states, everything alive has two sides, and throughout these 100 Sonnets, the author seems to take particular delight in exploring contradictions, dualities, and opposites. He states he must "not love" in order to love more profoundly, as continual love may become everyday and stale where it should instead be ever-new and passionate. In a similar way, love is eternal, yet Neruda expresses fear in his musings on mortality that something important is lost when love leaves the physical world and becomes merely spiritual. Love is capable of great happiness, but it can also wound and cause great strife. The speaker idealizes the lovers "alone together," two beings but somehow one in love. Neruda talks of Matilde as being physically ugly in some respects, but also the most beautiful creature he has ever laid eyes on. Love is capable of a great serenity, but also...