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My mistress eyes are nothing like the sun william shakespeare essay
Literay analysis of the sonnet Written ar the Close of Spring
Literay analysis of the sonnet Written ar the Close of Spring
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“I grant I never saw a goddess go: / My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground. (11-12) a quote by William Shakespeare to describe how his mistress is not like a goddess. The poem by William Shakespeare called “My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun” and the poem “Oh, my love is like a red, red rose” by Robert Burns are both written to express their love to another using a sonnet. Both poems use their titles and figurative language to express their love but use different approaches when describing their love. For example, Shakespeare’s approach is impolite as he compares his lover’s traits to other women and falling short while Burn’s approach is more romantic and exaggerated because he will love her “Till a’ the seas gang dry. (10) …show more content…
This also shows which kind of approach he decided to take when writing the poem, therefore throughout the poem he is criticizing her. In addition to the title, Shakespeare uses figurative language to compare his mistress to other women and how she doesn’t stand up to their image of beauty, “And in some perfumes there is more delight / Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks” (7-8). Despite this fact, at the end of the poem, Shakespeare writes he loves her regardless of her appearances or traits falling short to others.
On the other hand, Burns uses his title to overemphasis his love in a romantic way by comparing his love to a red, red rose. Similarly, he uses figurative language such as hyperboles to magnify his passion by writing, “And I will love thee still, my dear, / Till a’ the seas gang dry” (7-8). This quote is expressing how he would love his dear even if the seas ran dry. He also uses a simile, “My love is like the melody / That’s sweetly played in June” (4-5) to again show the loving direction the poem takes
When a comparison is made between There is a Garden in Her Face by Thomas Campion and Sonnet 130 by William Shakespeare, the difference between lustful adoration and true love becomes evident. Both poems involve descriptions of a beloved lady seen through the eyes of the speaker, but the speaker in Campion's poem discusses the woman's beautiful perfections, while the speaker in Shakespeare's poem shows that it is the woman's faults which make her beautiful.
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.
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...
There is a defining complication in the sonnet. “This centers on the ambiguity of the term “mistress” which could refer to a husband’s wife, or, as the Oxford English Dictionary suggests, could also mean “[a] woman loved and courted by a man; a female sweetheart” or “[a]woman other than his wife with whom a man has a long-lasting sexual relationship” (Gregory, 2). The poem does not specify if “my love” refers to the speaker’s mistress or to the speaker’s love, his feelings. Shakespeare could be implying that his feelings and his love, are equally as sacred as the supposed love of other lovers that his mistress wrongly compares him
In William Shakespeare’s 130th sonnet, “My Mistress’ Eyes Are Nothing Like the Sun,” Shakespeare takes a very uncommon route. Unlike most poets who look at women as being beautiful, Shakespeare turns the tables and describes this mystery woman as being unpleasing to the eye. In this fourteen line poem, William Shakespeare uses vivid imagery and exaggeration to describe the woman. He also convinces the reader that he thinks the woman is not beautiful, but the poem takes a sharp turn in the last lines where he reveals his true message.
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).
'A Red, Red Rose', was first published in 1794 in A Selection of Scots Songs, edited by Peter Urbani. Written in ballad stanzas, the verse - read today as a poem – pieces together conventional ideas and images of love in a way that transcends the "low" or non-literary sources from which the poem is drawn. In it, the speaker compares his love first with a blooming rose in spring and then with a melody "sweetly play'd in tune." If these similes seem the typical fodder for love-song lyricists, the second and third stanzas introduce the subtler and more complex implications of time. In trying to quantify his feelings - and in searching for the perfect metaphor to describe the "eternal" nature of his love - the speaker inevitably comes up against love's greatest limitation, "the sands o' life." This image of the hour-glass forces the reader to reassess of the poem's first and loveliest image: A "red, red rose" is itself an object of an hour, "newly sprung" only "in June" and afterward subject to the decay of time. This treatment of time and beauty predicts the work of the later Romantic poets, who took Burns's work as an important influence.
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...
This sonnet is an anti-love poem that ironically shows how the fairness of a lady is contingent upon nature's blessings and her external manifestations. The Spenserian style brings unity to this sonnet, in that it's theme and rhyme is interwoven throughout, but the focus of her "fairness" is divided into an octave and a sestet. The first eight lines praise her physical features (hair, cheeks, smile), while the last six lines praise her internal features (words, spirit, heart). This sonnet intentionally hides the speaker's ridicule behind counterfeit love-language, using phrases like: "fair golden hairs" (line 1), and "rose in her red cheeks" (line 3), and "her eyes the fire of love does spark" (line 4). This traditional love language fills pages of literature and song, and has conventionally been used to praise the attributes of a lover; but this sonnet betrays such language by exhibiting a critique rather than commendation. This sonnet appears to praise the beauty of a lady but ironically ridicules her by declaring that her "fairness" is contingent upon nature, physical features, and displaying a gentle spirit, which hides her pride.
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.
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.
The often-used first line makes the reader more familiar with poem. The speaker's love is expressed through two similes; his love is compared to “a red, red rose” and “the melody” (1, 3). The speaker echoes his sentiments by reinforcing two above similes with the phrases “That’s newly” and “That’s sweetly” (2, 4). Obviously, the color "red" is a symbol of passionate love and used in the form of alliteration such “a red, red rose” it shows how strong is the speaker’s feeling (1). Its appeal over time and comparison with the loved woman gives the reader the possibility to discover the speaker’s pleasant ways on art...
Love can be conveyed in many ways. It can be expressed through movements, gestures or even words on a paper. In William Shakespeare’s poems, “Sonnet 18” and “Sonnet 130,” both revolve around the idea of love, but are expressed in a different ways in terms of the mood, theme and the language used.
He revolves around her cheeks and mouth, as he has not “seen roses damasked, red and white, / but no such see I in her cheeks” (Shakespeare 5-6). The picture the speaker is painting is one of his mistress having a dull complexion with an undesirable texture. His vivid use of imagery further aids in his satirical mocking of the conventional sonnets falsely comparing women to grand things, which in this case to a soft red rose. In the second quatrain, the speakers tone starts to change as the langue he uses to describe his mistress differs. His language in the second and third quatrain’s is more euphonious when he describes his mistress, indicating that he feels for her, and the flaws that he lists are only skin deep. Following the depiction of her cheeks the speaker goes on listing her flaws, one after the other; he comments how the “breath” (Shakespeare 8) of his “mistress reeks,” (Shakespeare 8) to her her “dun” (Shakespeare 3) breast and her displeasing “damasked” (Shakespeare 5) skin. It seems that the speaker is doing the exact opposite of a conventional love poem as he’s not placing the beauty of a mistress on a pedestal, rather he lowers her in beauty in the eye of reader by describing, in detail, her lack of beauty, aiding in his ridiculing of the conventional love