In today’s society a person’s beauty is based on the views of a society. Society over time has changed the perception of beauty, especially a woman’s beauty. Modern times wants a woman as the “whole package”, she must possess a curves body but be thin, must have color within her skin but not be too dark and other criteria that are not possible. Two poems that one can use to demonstrate beauty are written by William Shakespeare and Lord Byron. The poem Sonnet 130 written by William Shakespeare and She Walks in Beauty by Lord Byron both describe a woman’s beauty of whom they have feelings for. However Shakespeare points out the flaws within her beauty while Byron focuses on his admiration of the beauty. Although these two authors speak on two …show more content…
Most readers would give it a second glance because it comes off as a list of things that he points out as ‘flaws’. Conversely he is actually claiming her quirks as things he finds beautiful and loves about her. The last few stanzas within the poem present this ideal. “I love to hear her speak, yet well I know / That music hath a far more pleasing sound” (Shakespeare 09 -10). Shakespeare is saying that he loves to hear her speak even though music has more of a pleasant tone than she. One can interpret that despite the woman is not having a stunning or melodic voice he would still prefer her voice over music. His perception of her beauty surpasses what others consider beautiful. This is shown again in his ending couplet of the sonnet. “And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare / As any she belied with false compare” …show more content…
He admires every aspect her by comparing her to night and day. “And all that’s best of dark and bright / Meet in her aspect and her eyes” (Byron 3 – 4). She is the combination of dark and bright showing the best of both sides. As well that her eyes may sparkle despite being dark color. Byron uses this comparison throughout the poem in the stanzas constantly showing her flaws are not flaws but beautiful. She is a balance of beauty. He continues in the third stanza of showing the two sides of the coin. “The smiles that win, the tints that glow, / But tell of days in goodness spent” (Byron 15 – 16). She has a glowing smile and blushes when told but that she also has spent her life doing good things. She is not just a pretty face but her beauty goes further and is more than skin deep. She is also is a good person on the inside. Byron focuses on the wholeness of the beauty by displaying that she is seen as a good way by not just her looks but also by her actions. “Byron consistently approaches and represents the object of beauty with an indirection that locates that object 's aesthetic power in the ambience it creates and the effects to which that ambience gives rise. This suggests that although the poem 's nominal subject is the uncommon beauty of one particular lady, its real subject is something quite different: the sublime effect of the contrasts arising from the initial perception
The title She Walks in Beauty by Lord Byron, the author uses similes and imagery to create a focus and mood that shows the theme that a woman can be beautiful even with her darker qualities.. The poem is about a man describing the beauty of a woman. He is not saying the way she walks is beautiful but, everything she does is beautiful. The figurative language in this poem includes a simile in the first line, “ She walks in beauty, like the night” (Byron 1) to give readers an idea of her beauty. The author explains darkness and brightness and contrasts the two, often repeated throughout the poem, “And all that’s best of dark and bright, Meet in her aspect and her eyes” (Byron 3-4). The connection with dark and bright
Today some people say that love is blind, but in William Shakespeare’s “Sonnet 130” and Pablo Neruda’s “My Ugly Love,” they understand and see its honesty. Inside their poems they tell love like it is: imperfect and full of flaws. Needless to say, Shakespeare and Neruda had no apparent trouble conveying the true meaning behind beauty and love through their usage of reflection against positive and negative imagery, the usage of an orderly structure, and usage of sensory devices. If there is one thing that someone could learn through the work of these poets, it’s that beauty lies further than just the appearance on the outside; once someone else can realize this, only then will they discover the true significance that beauty brings to love.
“Sonnet Eighteen” was one of the first of the Sonnets to become very well known. It “sets a fearful problem in turning it into prose”, because it is so straight forward and easy to comprehend (Rowse 39). Throughout this poem, the reader will acknowledge that Shakespeare “finds the human beauty “more lovely” and more lasting than nature’s” (Kastan 10). In the Sonnet, Shakespeare is comparing a woman to a summer’s day. He uses imagery to differentiate the harshness of summer and beauty of the woman. The audience can see the speaker’s perspective of youth and beauty throughout the lines in the
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
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
"She Walks in Beauty" is a love poem written by Lord Byron in 1814. In this poem, Byron describes a woman's extraordinary beauty. Throughout the poem, he explains the woman’s physical beauty as well as her spiritual and intellectual beauty. I chose this poem, because I like to read love poems, especially poems that express my feelings. Also, because This poem is creative and fresh, and I really enjoyed reading it. When I initially read this poem, it was clear that Lord Byron was writing about a woman whom he thought very highly of. Lord Byron’s first verse had me convinced that the woman in his poem was one whom he’d merely caught a glimpse of. The quote “…all that’s best of dark and bright meet in her aspect and her eyes” along with his description of the beauty in her walk gave me the impression that Lord Byron might not know this beautiful woman on a personal level since his initial description consisted of only physical features. However, as the poem progressed, I realized that this woman could be Lord Byron’s lover or wife based on the lines, “where thoughts serenely sweet expr...
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...
Sonnet 18 and Sonnet 130, by William Shakespeare, are two of the most well known Shakespeare sonnets. Both are similar in theme, however, the two poems are very much contradictory in style, purpose, and the muse to who Shakespeare is writing.
In "A Woman's Beauty: Put-down or Power Source," Susan Sontag portrays how a woman's beauty has been degraded while being called beautiful and how that conceives their true identity as it seems to portray innocence and honesty while hiding the ugliness of the truth. Over the years, women have being classified as the gentler sex and regarded as the fairer gender. Sontag uses narrative structure to express the conventional attitude, which defines beauty as a concept applied today only to women and their outward appearance. She accomplishes this by using the technique of contrast to distinguish the beauty between men and women and establishing a variation in her essay, by using effective language.
Shakespeare's Exploration in Sonnet 2 of the Themes of Age and Beauty. Look closely at the effects of language, imagery and handling of the sonnet form. Comment on ways in which the poem’s methods and concerns are characteristics of other Shakespeare sonnets you have studied. The second of Shakespeare’s sonnets conveys an argument the poet is. making somewhat implicitly to a subject whose identity is hazy and unknown to the reader, even in retrospect.
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 poet starts off the poem with a metaphoric Question of whether he "Shall compare thee to a summer's day?" this is a positive question asking whether the beauty of the summer is worthy of that compared to his lover/mistress. This is an effective metaphor because it suggests that the woman is either more or equally beautiful as the calm and warm summer which reinforces the idea of everlasting beauty. A summer day is calm and generally suppose to be filled with life and the beauty of the nature, which alludes to the beloveds' beauty. In line three of the poem the speaker compares the beloved to the summer day which is imperfect compared to the beloved. The summer is flawed in that it has "rough winds" which alludes to the idea that the beloved is perfect and is in fact superior to ...