The Theme of Unconditional Love in William Shakespeare's Sonnet 130
'Sonnet 130' sounds as if it is mocking all of the other poems of Shakespeare's era. Love poems of this time period made women out to be superficial goddesses. 'Sonnet 130' takes the love poem to a deeper, more intimate level where looks are no longer important and it is inner beauty that matters.
Shakespeare paints this picture using a wonderful combination of metaphors
and a simile. He starts the poem out with a simile comparing his mistress' eyes to the sun. He then quickly switches over to using the metaphors to compare the rest of his mistress' characteristics, such as her breasts to snow and hair to wires.
This poem is written in the traditional Shakespearean sonnet form. It has three quatrains and a couplet. The rhyme scheme for the poem is ababcdcdefefgg. The a sound is made of an '-un' rhyme while the b sound is made of an '-ed' rhyme. The sound of c is an '-ite' rhyme and the sound of d is a rhyme of '-eeks.' The e and f sounds are rhymes of '-o' and '-ound' respectively and the g sound...
The poem opens upon comparisons, with lines 3 through 8 reading, “Ripe apples were caught like red fish in the nets/ of their branches. The maples/ were colored like apples,/part orange and red, part green./ The elms, already transparent trees,/ seemed swaying vases full of sky.” The narrator’s surroundings in this poem illustrate him; and the similes suggest that he is not himself, and instead he acts like others. Just as the maples are colored like apples, he
In “Sonnet,” Billy Collins satirizes the classical sonnet’s volume to illustrate love in only “…fourteen lines…” (1). Collins’s poem subsists as a “Sonnet,” though there exists many differences in it countering the customarily conventional structure of a sonnet. Like Collins’s “Sonnet,” Shakespeare’s “Sonnet 130” also faces incongruities from the classic sonnet form as he satirizes the concept of ideal beauty that was largely a convention of writings and art during the Elizabethan era. Although these poem venture through different techniques to appear individually different from the classic sonnet, the theme of love makes the poems analogous.
William Shakespeare’s “Sonnet 130”, was published in the mid-1590, and published with the rest of Shakespeare’s sonnets in 1609. The sonnet has fourteen lines, and divided into three quatrains and one couplet at the end. The rhyme scheme is cross rhyme, with the last two lines being couplets that rhyme. The sonnet compares between nature and the poets’ lover or mistress. He shows a more realistic view of his lover. Needless to say his significant other wasn’t physically attractive, yet he loved her inside beauty. Today we may use the term, “It’s not all about looks, but what’s inside”.
This poem is written in eleven quatrains. All of these quatrains follow an abcb rhyme scheme. An example of this from lines 1-4 are “toune” being a, “wine” being b, “salior” being c, and “mine” being b. This means that the poem was written in closed form. It also follows a meter with four beats in the a and c lines and three beats in the b lines. An example of the four beats from line 5 is “Up and spak an eldern I Knicht”. The example of three beats from line 6 is “Sat at the kings richt kne”.
Lust and Love in Shakespeare’s Sonnet 130 and Campion’s There is a Garden in Her Face
When he writes "And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare as any she, belied with false compare." (lines 13-14) in the final couplet, one responds with an enlightened appreciation, making them understand Shakespeare's message that true love consists of something deeper than physical beauty. Shakespeare expresses his ideas in a wonderful fashion. Not only does he express himself through direct interpretation of his sonnet, but also through the levels at which he styled and produced it. One cannot help but appreciate his message of true love over lust, along with his creative criticism of Petrarchan sonnets.
Both Sonnets have different styles. Sonnet 18 is a much more traditional poem, showing the reader a picture of his muse in the most divine way. Shakespeare uses a complex metaphor of comparing his subject to the summer, but at the same time making it easy to understand. The poet goes as traditional as possible; his friend surpasses the beauty of summer, as summer will fade and turn to winter. Sonnet 130 is just as easy to understand as the former. The use of straightforward comparisons that go from line to line, instead of one metaphor elaborated through the entire poem, makes this sonnet quite different in style. Sonnet 130, in contradiction to Sonnet 18, purposefully branches off from the traditional romantic love poem for he does not describe the subject as a true beauty but as his true love.
At the time of its writing, Shakespeare's one hundred thirtieth sonnet, a highly candid, simple work, introduced a new era of poems. Shakespeare's expression of love was far different from traditional sonnets in the early 1600s, in which poets highly praised their loved ones with sweet words. Instead, Shakespeare satirizes the tradition of comparing one's beloved to the beauties of the sun. From its opening phrase "My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun", shocks the audience because it does not portray a soft, beautiful woman. Despite the negative connotations of his mistress, Shakespeare speaks a true woman and true love. The sonnet is a "how-to" guide to love.
...e structure of this poem is the rhyming scheme. The rhyme scheme for this particular sonnet, along with many others of Shakespeare's sonnets is abab cdcd efef gg. This is beneficial to to sonnet simply because it allows it to flow better and gives it rhythm.
Shakespeare’s sonnet 130 is a sonnet much different than the normal love sonnets of that time. A well-known re-occurring them in Shakespeare’s sonnets is love. Shakespeare’s sonnet 130 can be interpreted many different ways. Sonnet 130 describes what love is to Shakespeare by making the poem a joke in order to mock other poets. In sonnet 130, Shakespeare spoke of a courtly love. Shakespeare goes against the usual style of courtly love writing in this sonnet. “In comparison to Petrarch’s Sonnet 90 and Shakespeare’s own Sonnets 18 and 20, Sonnet 130 is a parody of courtly love, favoring a pastoral love that is austere in its declaration, yet deep-rooted in sincerity” (Dr. Tilla Slabbert 1). Sonnet 130 mocks the men who use the traditional
This Shakespearean sonnet consisting of 14 lines can be subdivided into 3 parts. In each part, the poet uses a different voice. He uses 1st person in the first part, 3rd person in the 2nd part and 2nd person in the last part. Each section of the poem has a different theme that contributes to the whole theme of the poem.
...es they create different images, which compare humans to nature. Also, both sonnets create the idea of a courtly love sonnet, but Sonnet 18 has a better explanation or image of that. The speaker’s beloved is way too perfect and cannot be compared to anything, even though it could be the most beautiful day of the year, it still would not give justice to his lovers beauty. In Sonnet 130 it still talks about love, but the speaker is being sarcastic and makes fun of the usual love poem. Regardless, the first part of the Sonnet 130 speaks about his mistress’s unattractiveness; the ending explains that despite her imperfectness, the speaker loves her for who is she is. Although it seems to be difficult to figure out whether the speaker or Shakespeare wants his beloved to be perfect or imperfect, it does reflect that Shakespeare does appreciate beauty, flaws, and nature.
Almost four hundred years after his death, William Shakespeare's work continues to live on through his readers. He provides them with vivid images of what love was like during the 1600's. Shakespeare put virtually indescribable feelings into beautiful words that fit the specific form of the sonnet. He wrote 154 sonnets; all of which discuss some stage or feature of love. Love was the common theme during the time Shakespeare was writing. However, Shakespeare wrote about it in such a way that captivated his reader and made them want to apply his words to their romances. What readers do not realize while they compare his sonnets to their real life relationships is that Shakespeare was continually defying the conventions of courtly love in his writings.
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
The fourteen line sonnet is constructed by three quatrains and one couplet. With the organization of the poem, Shakespeare accomplishes to work out a different idea in each of the three quatrains as he writes the sonnet to lend itself naturally. Each of the quatrain contains a pair of images that create one universal idea in the quatrain. The poem is written in a iambic pentameter with a rhyme scheme of ABAB CDCD EFEF GG. Giving the poem a smooth rhyming transition from stanza to