In “My Mistress’ Eyes Are Nothing Like the Sun” by William Shakespeare, the most important poetic feature is the situation created in the poem because it is the feature that makes the reader begin to question what is happening, which ultimately leads to a better understanding of the theme that women are overly compared to clichés they cannot live up to in the era of Petrarch Sonnets. Petrarch’s famous sonnet sequence is a collection of love poems to a certain woman idolizing her beauty and perfection through extravagant metaphors and similes. The metaphors soon became clichés but they continued to be used to make comparisons about a poet’s lover. Shakespeare uses a satirical approach in this poem to mock the cheesy Petrarchan metaphors by taking the common clichés to describe his mistress, known as the “Dark …show more content…
The situation of Shakespeare deliberately using typical love poetry metaphors against themselves is important for readers to question in order to continue on trying to understand the underlying idea of the sonnet. To continue on with the notion of Shakespeare commenting on the Dark Lady’s appearance with the reversed use of the Petrarch clichés, in lines 5-12, “I have seen roses damask'd, red and white/ But no such roses see I in her cheeks/ And in some perfumes is there more delight/ Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks/ I love to hear her speak, yet well I know/ That music hath a far more pleasing sound/ I grant I never saw a goddess go/ My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground.” To paraphrase this, Shakespeare is saying he has seen red and white damask roses but her cheeks just pale, no hint of pink (line 5-6). Perfume tends to smell good and is better than her breath because it reeks (line 7-8). He likes to hear her talk but music is nicer to listen to than her voice (line 9-10). He has never seen a goddess on Earth, and he knows his mistress walks steadily on the ground (line 11-12). All 12 beginning lines can impose
...uty which is impossible for any woman or man to match. Campion's poem reflects this impossible ideal that society inflicts on us. This woman in There is a Garden in Her Face could never really live up to the image that the speaker has created of her. The image is false, and so is his love because he is only focusing on her outward appearance. The speaker in Shakespeare's sonnet clearly is not in love with his mistress' looks. Everything about her is contrary to society's standards, but he understands the absurdity of these standards and rejects them. There is more to his mistress than meets the eye, and that is why he truly loves her.
EBB expertly manipulates the Petrarchan sonnet form, commonly known as a way to objectify women, in order to voice her yearning for true love. The Victorian era was witness to rapid industrialization, and with this came a growing superficiality for dowry’s and status. EBB accentuates her own context by so strongly rejecting its newly materialistic conventions, especially towards love. EBB laments ‘How Theocritus had sung’ (Sonnet I), her Greco allusion successfully communicating her longing to return to the values of substantial love during the romantic era. This highlights her own context as it illustrates a distain for its current values of superficiality. Furthermore, EBB conveys her contempt of having to ‘fashion into speech’ (Sonnet XIII) her love, this mocking of courting is highly explored as she continues to ridicule those who love for ‘Her smile, her look’ (Sonnet XIV), thus highlighting her context to the audience. In addition, during Sonnet XXXII, EBB powerfully voices how ‘Quick loving hearts…may quickly loathe’; her expert employment of anadiplosis critiques how superficiality in love may cause it to fade away. A motif of love fading away due to shallowness throughout her sonnet progression significantly highlights the values of love at the time and therefore
Shakespeare's My Mistress' Eyes Are Nothing Like the Sun Many authors compose sonnets about women whom they loved. Most of these authors embellish their women's physical characteristics by comparing them to natural wonders that we, as humans, find beautiful. Shakespeare's "My Mistress' Eyes Are Nothing Like the Sun" contradicts this idea, by stating that his mistress lacks most of the qualities other men wrongly praise their women for possessing. Shakespeare presents to one that true love recognizes imperfections and feels devotion regardless of flaws, while satirically expressing his personal thoughts on Petrarchan sonnets. Through the use of comparisons, the English sonnet and an anti-Petrarchan approach, he creatively gets his point across.
Another piece Shakespeare analyzes is his mistress’ hair. A major cliché today about women 's beauty is their hair. Men assume that it should be silky and smooth and sometimes even shiny. Shakespeare ends up turning this assumption on its head in this poem. Back in Shakespeare’s time, the readers might have recognized all these worn-out similes as allusions or references to images in other love poems. For example, the image of hair as black as wires sprouting out of her head might be meant to gross the audience out. It almost sounds like Shakespeare is referencing a creepy
That means, the approaches of poet’s love remain the same. In one place, he portrays beauty as conveying a great responsibility in the sonnets addressed to the young man. The poet has experienced what he thinks of as "the marriage of true minds," also known as true love, that his love remains strong, and that he believes that it’s eternal. Nothing will stop their love, as in the symbols like all the ships, stars and stormy seas that fill the landscape of the poem and so on what can affect to their love. The poet is too much attracted with the young man’s beauty, though this indicates to something really bad behavior. But in another place, Shakespeare makes fun of the dark lady in sonnet 130. He explains that his lover, the dark lady, has wires for hair, bad breath, dull cleavage, a heavy step, pale lips and so on, but to him, real love is, the sonnet implies, begins when we accept our lovers for what they are as well as what they are not. But other critics may not agree with this and to them, beauty may define to something
Shakespeare’s themes are mostly conventional topics, such as love and beauty. Nevertheless, Shakespeare presents these themes in his own unique fashion, most notably by addressing the poems of beauty not to a fair maiden, but instead to a young man: ‘‘shall I compare thee to a summer’s day? Thou art more lovely and more temperate” (book). Shakespeare points out that the youth’s beauty is more perfect then the beauty of a summer day. It is also “more temperate”, in other words more gentle, more restrained whereas the summer’s day might have violent excesses in store. At first glance of sonnet 18, it’s pretty much certain that one would think Shakespeare is referring to a woman, not a man. The idea of a man describing another man with such choice of words is always seen with a different eye. Several even stated that Shakespeare is homosexual. Whichever the case may be, Shakespeare painted beauty in the most original matter. He dared to do what everybody else didn’t, or maybe feared to, and accomplished his goal with flying colors. Besides, in his sonnets, Shakespeare states that the young man was made for a woman and urges the man to marry so he can pass on h...
Sonnet 130 is Shakespeare’s harsh yet realistic tribute to his quite ordinary mistress. Conventional love poetry of his time would employ Petrarchan imagery and entertain notions of courtly love. Francis Petrarch, often noted for his perfection of the sonnet form, developed a number of techniques for describing love’s pleasures and torments as well as the beauty of the beloved. While Shakespeare adheres to this form, he undermines it as well. Through the use of deliberately subversive wordplay and exaggerated similes, ambiguous concepts, and adherence to the sonnet form, Shakespeare creates a parody of the traditional love sonnet. Although, in the end, Shakespeare embraces the overall Petrarchan theme of total and consuming love.
Shakespeare and Petrarch, two poets popular for their contributions on the issue of love, both tackle the subject of their work through sonnet, yet there are key contrasts in their style, structure, and in the way, each approaches their subjects. Moreover, it is clear that in "Sonnet 130," Shakespeare in fact parodies Petrarch's style and thoughts as his storyteller describes his mistress, whose "eyes are in no way as the sun" (Shakespeare 1918). Shakespeare seems, by all accounts, to mock the exaggerated descriptions expanded throughout Petrarch’s piece by giving an English poem portraying the speaker’s love in terms that are characteristic of a flawed woman not a goddess. On the other hand, Petrarch's work is full of symbolism. In reviewing "Sonnet 292" from the Canzoniere, through “Introduction to Literature and Arts,” Petrarch’s utilization of resemblance and the romanticizing of Petrarch's female subject are normal for the Petrarchan work. The leading major contrast between the two poems is the piece structure utilized (McLaughlin).
The speaker uses metaphors to describe his mistress’ eyes to being like the sun; her lips being red as coral; cheeks like roses; breast white as snow; and her voices sounding like music. In the first few lines of the sonnet, the speaker view and tells of his mistress as being ugly, as if he was not attracted to her. He give...
Compared to the first few lines in the second sonnet: "My mistress eyes are nothing like the sun coral is far more red than her lips red" And this shocking feeling of offense and harshness continues through to line twelve in the second sonnet. However, there are some dark points in the first sonnet as well, as death is mentioned in line eleven "Nor shall death brag thou wandr'st in his shade" And "rough winds" in line three. However, how harsh and sincere these sonnets may be, both have the conclusions with the similar idea that Shakespeare loves his woman so much that he doesn't need to give her false comparisons to do with beautiful items or beautiful things that don't last forever - his love lasts for eternity in the sonnet: "So long as men can breath, and eyes can see So long lives this, and this gives life to thee."
Though ballads and Sonnets are poems that can depict a picture of someone’s beloved, they can have many differences. For instance, a Ballad is a story in short stanzas such as a song would have, where as a sonnet typical, has a traditional structure of 14 lines employing several rhyme schemes and adheres to a tight thematic organization. Both Robert Burn’s ballad “The Red, Red, Rose, and William Shakespeare’s “of the Sonnet 130 “they express their significant other differently. However, “The Red, Red, Rose depicts the Falling in new love through that of a young man’s eyes, and Shakespeare’s sonnet 130 depicts a more realistic picture of the mistress he writes about; which leaves the reader to wonder if beauty is really in the eyes of the beholder.
In conclusion, Shakespeare is more effective with using figurative language and imagery in his sonnet. This is mainly because he personifies the sun in a way that acknowledges how essential the sun is to a summer’s day. Both poems by Shakespeare and Browning are virtually about the same topic. In addition, both of these poems also address the unknown person as “thee”. Moreover, a question of uncertainty is at the beginning of each poem as well. The theme of the two poems are pertaining to eternal love, exceeding death and only becoming stronger.
This poem speaks of a love that is truer than denoting a woman's physical perfection or her "angelic voice." As those traits are all ones that will fade with time, Shakespeare exclaims his true love by revealing her personality traits that caused his love. Shakespeare suggests that the eyes of the woman he loves are not twinkling like the sun: "My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun" (1). Her hair is compared to a wire: "If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head" (3). These negative comparisons may sound almost unloving, however, Shakespeare proves that the mistress outdistances any goddess. This shows that the poet appreciates her human beauties unlike a Petrarchan sonnet that stresses a woman's cheek as red a rose or her face white as snow. Straying away from the dazzling rhetoric, this Shakespearean poem projects a humane and friendly impression and elicits laughter while expressing a truer love. A Petrarchan sonnet states that love must never change; this poem offers a more genuine expression of love by describing a natural woman.
During the course of Edmund Spencer’s Amoretti, the “Petrarchan beloved certainly underwent a transformation” (Lever 98); the speaker depicts the beloved as merciless and is not content with being an “unrequited lover” (Roche 1) as present in a Petrarchan sonnet. Throughout Sonnet 37 and Sonnet 54, the speaker provides insight into the beloved not seen within the Petrarchan sonnets; though the speaker does present his uncontrollable love for the beloved, he does so through his dissatisfaction with his position and lack of control. In Sonnet 37, the speaker describes the beloved as an enchantress who artfully captures the lover in her “golden snare” (Spencer, 6) and attempts to warn men of the beloved’s nature. Sonnet 54, the speaker is anguished by the beloved’s ignorance towards his pain and finally denies her humanity. Spencer allows the speaker to display the adversarial nature of his relationship with the beloved through the speaker’s negative description of the beloved, the presentation of hope of escaping from this love, and his discontent with his powerlessness. Spencer presents a power struggle and inverted gender roles between the lover and the beloved causing ultimate frustration for the speaker during his fight for control.
Through the form of sonnet, Shakespeare and Petrarch both address the subject of love, yet there are key contrasts in their style, structure, and in the manner, each approaches their subjects. Moreover, in "Sonnet 130," Shakespeare, in fact, parodies Petrarch's style and thoughts as his storyteller describes his mistress, whose "eyes are in no way as the sun" (Shakespeare 1918). Through his English poem, Shakespeare seems to mock the exaggerated descriptions expanded throughout Petrarch’s work by portraying the speaker’s love in terms that are characteristic of a flawed woman not a goddess. On the other hand, upon a review of "Sonnet 292" from the Canzoniere, through “Introduction to Literature and Arts,” one quickly perceives that Petrarch's work is full of symbolism. However, Petrarch’s utilization of resemblance and the romanticizing of Petrarch's female subject are normal for the Petrarchan style.