Love in William Shakespeare’s Sonnets and Romeo and Juliet

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Recommended: A comparison of sonnet 116 and 130

Love in William Shakespeare’s Sonnets and Romeo and Juliet

First, let’s define “cynical”. According to the Webster’s dictionary

of the English language, “cynical” means distrusting or disparaging

the motives of others. It is for certain that both the sonnets and

Romeo and Juliet have negative views on romantic love. Shakespeare

questions and doubts about the love of Romeo and Juliet, or rather,

criticize and mock their hasty death. On the other hand, in the

sonnets, Shakespeare also questions about whether romantic love as

lasting as it seems. Since both the sonnets and Romeo and Juliet have

the same cynical view on romantic love, I do not agree with this

statement. Because either one of them is more cynical than the other.

In the following paragraphs, I would prove to you how both the play’s

view on romantic love concurs with the sonnets.

A very famous sonnet, number 130, portrays Shakespeare’s mistress as a

hideous woman, without eyes like the sun, without coral red lips, with

breast like dun and hair like wires etc. This sonnet is exceptional

since it portrays a different, a more comical view of the love towards

a woman. At the time of Shakespeare, poets usually write about fair

ladies with eyes are stars, roses cheeks and melodic voice etc. Here

is am example of a typical poem praising the beauty of one’s love:

My Lady's hair is threads of beaten gold; (contrast with “the wires

grow on her head”)

Her front the purest crystal eye hath seen;

Her eyes the brightest stars the heavens hold; (contrast with “nothing

like the sun”)

Her cheeks, red roses, such as seld have been; (contrast with no such

roses see I in her cheeks)

Her pretty lips of red vermilion dye; (contrast with “coral is far

more red than her lips”)

Her hand of ivory the purest white;

Her blush AURORA, or the morning sky.

Her breast displays two silver fountains bright; (contrast with “her

breast are dun”)

The spheres, her voice; (contrast with “that music hath a far more

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