Hyperbole is an obvious and intentional exaggeration. It has Latin and Greek roots meaning excess, to exceed or to throw over; in other words, to go too far, to exaggerate for emphasis or effect rather than to make a real or believable comparison. For example:

Her eyes were brighter than a thousand stars
Illuminating earth’s rotating orb;

That’s an example of hyperbole, the best example in the universe, possibly (which is also an example of hyperbole).

You might say “I’m so hungry I could eat a horse” or “This suitcase weighs a ton”. If it really did weigh a ton, you couldn’t lift it. You’re actually trying to convey the fact that it weighs too much and you wish someone else would carry it for you. But if you simply said “I’m not strong enough to lift this” your self-respect would instantly evaporate and be seen never more.

The horse is a different story.

Another word used to describe hyperbole is overstatement, making a comparison so extravagant that it’s obvious what you’re doing. It’s used often in poetry to convey a lover’s overwhelming adoration for the object of his or her affections, as in this extract from Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet:

But, soft! what light through yonder window breaks?
It is the east, and Juliet is the sun.
Arise, fair sun, and kill the envious moon,
Who is already sick and pale with grief,
That thou her maid art far more fair than she.

Image via Wikipedia

The point of hyperbole is emphasis, creating a strong impression. It’s where the word “hype” comes from, a deliberate exaggeration to try and encourage us to buy that new car, toaster, face pack or TV. It’s used whenever a new movie or television show is about to hit the screens in an attempt to persuade us that it’s the best thing since sliced bread.

Hyperbole denotes an intensity of feeling that’s almost impossible to put into words in any other way. For example, here’s Andrew Marvell’s attempt in the poem To His Coy Mistress:

An hundred years should go to praise
Thine eyes, and on thy forehead gaze;
Two hundred to adore each breast,
But thirty thousand to the rest;

Read the whole poem if you get a chance; the first stanza is all hyperbole, and there are further examples of it throughout the rest of the poem.

As if to show us the difference, Shakespeare wrote his Sonnet 130 which opens like this:

My mistress eyes are nothing like the sun;

Clearly no hype there. The poem also includes the lines:

I love to hear her speak, yet well I know
That music hath a far more pleasing sound;

And this one:

My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground:

If hyperbole was the intention in this sonnet, he might have written something like:

My mistress’ gaze doth knock me off my feet,
Her hair the scent of jasmine, thrice as sweet;

But he didn’t. So what’s the poet saying? That she’s a plain Jane, nothing special?

No; he’s saying that he loves her for what she is, and there’s no need to exaggerate. Of course, we don’t know what her reaction was to all this.

She might prefer something more obvious, such as this excerpt from Andrew Lloyd Webber’s song Love Changes Everything:

Love
Can make the summer fly,
Or a night
Seem like a lifetime.

It’s not Shakespeare; it’s hyperbole. And that’s no exaggeration.