The poem
My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun; Coral is far more red than her lips' red; If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun; If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head. I have seen roses damasked, 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. And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare As any she belied with false compare.
Please help, i have to anaylise how William Shakespeare approaches the theme of love in sonnet 130...
ASAP
i think this poem is the best poem that Shakespeare had written because he shows that true love what it looks to the person's personality not appearance. if it is possiblr i need analysis for it.
This sonnet is a tribute to Shakespeare's Lady. What matters to Shakespeare is the natural, ordinary, average beaty of his woman and not stunning beaty which is usually described by poets (about their ladies) using metaphors. They are also present but against themselves. They are there to illustrate the imperfection of his lady. The ending states that despite of all that, Shakespeare proclaims his love for his mistress and women shouldn't be described by poets with some untrue comparisons.
Analysis: Unemployed middle class man in elizebeathen times +opium = this sonnet
Shakespeare is trying to get through to his society. He wittingly ridicules society’s placement of value on a woman’s outward appearance. Shakespeare is ahead of his time, not mention his species, in realizing that a woman's worth is her mind and person.
I saw an interesting approach to this poem once at a Shakespeare Acting workshop. It was acted as if the poet, or speaker, was attempting to proclaim his love using the traditional structure of love poetry with traditional images (roses, snow, perfume, beautiful eyes, red lips, goddess comparisons) but was failing. So what you get is someone who begins a line with the very passsionate intention of talking about the…
Read the whole commentI saw an interesting approach to this poem once at a Shakespeare Acting workshop. It was acted as if the poet, or speaker, was attempting to proclaim his love using the traditional structure of love poetry with traditional images (roses, snow, perfume, beautiful eyes, red lips, goddess comparisons) but was failing. So what you get is someone who begins a line with the very passsionate intention of talking about the beauty of his beloved, and ends the line by conceding her lack of external beauty.
My mistress' eyes are...[realizes]...nothing like the sun. [breath, starts again determined to be poetical about his lover] coral is far more red...[realizes]...than her lips' red. etc.
There is a rising and falling action, an attack and a defeat, in almost every line. In speaking the poem this way, "I love to hear her speak" becomes a breakthrough. It is the first time he has spoken about a good quality of hers, but it is quickly abandoned once he considers music. By the end of the first 12 lines, the speaker is totally defeated by reason only to rise again in the last couplet with total abandon to claim his mistress with every ounce of his being. Pretty powerful...and funny.
There is another funn approach I saw as well. I watched someone get off on all the mistress' "bad" qualities. The fact that his mistress' breath is bad and she has black wires growing out of her head have the potential to be spoken in the same way as if they were amazing qualities. Very funny.
Nice poem focuses on that inner beauty is more important than outer beauty .
I think what he is trying to say is that love doesn't have to be gaudy and extravagant, its the simple thing that the heart truly beats for
this is a nice poem.Shakespeare is radical in his view in this poem.Thouhg the Petrachean poets compare their wives in a way that is not possible, shakespeare doesn't agre with those comparisons.this is a poem with a simple laguage.anyone can understand this easily.
What I think is that the poet is simply satirising the ideas of Elizabethan soneteers whose definition of a beautiful woman is unrealistic and false. I mean that's what Shakespeare is trying to explain. He loves his mistress the way she is and finds it quite normal that she is not as beautiful as the women of the Elizabethan soneteers. Because he loves a woman as a woman of the real world. And through these ideas he…
Read the whole commentWhat I think is that the poet is simply satirising the ideas of Elizabethan soneteers whose definition of a beautiful woman is unrealistic and false. I mean that's what Shakespeare is trying to explain. He loves his mistress the way she is and finds it quite normal that she is not as beautiful as the women of the Elizabethan soneteers. Because he loves a woman as a woman of the real world. And through these ideas he is actually suggesting that no such woman actually exists in real world who is like a goddess, whose eyes glitters like the sun and have lips as red as corals and whose feet never touches the ground. Poet is actually making a fun of the ideas of the Elizabethan soneteers about a beautiful woman.