My Mistress' Eyes are Nothing Like the Sun

The poem, “My Mistress’ Eyes are Nothing Like the Sun”, by William Shakespeare, is not a traditional love poem that compares a women to beautiful sites and wonderful smells of the world. Instead, the mistress in this poem is said to be nothing like all of the many splendors the reader has experienced. In the poem, the author uses many metaphors and comparisons to create a vivid image of a hideous woman. The poem meets the requirements of a Shakespearean sonnet and is written in iambic pentameter. It follows the rhyme scheme ABAB, CDCD, EFEF, GG. It is composed of three quatrains and one couplet and the end. Throughout the poem, the speaker creates a vision and even an atmosphere of a dreadful woman. However, in the very end he contradicts everything he has said and states that despite her ugliness in almost every possible way, he loves her for what she is on the inside.

The speaker begins the poem by painting the image of the first thing most people see when they look at another person, the face. By saying, “My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun,” he gives the impression that she is very plain. He continues this by saying, “Cora

l is far more red that her lips’ red.” Coral is a dull red. When saying that even coral is much more red than the color of her lips, he is saying that her lips are so dull they can hardly be called red at all. He then moves to her skin, a key feature in the image of an entire body; “If the snow be white, why then her breasts are dun.” Dun is a grayish brown color, an already unsatisfying tone. By comparing it to something so bright and clean as white though, the speaker intensifies the image. He also begins with a statement no one can disagree with. Snow is white so his mistress’ breasts must be the ugly shade of dun. He nearly completes his picture bye adding hair; “If her hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.” Shakespeare uses the word wires because they are thick, rough, and never flow like hair usually does. In Shakespeare’s time, women who had blonde, soft hair, blue shining eyes, pale skin, and deep red lips were the ones thought to be the most gorgeous. In these four lines alone he has created a creature opposite to the traditionally beautiful and stunning woman.

In the fourth quatrain, he completes the entire image and aura of the dreadful woman that is his mistress. He uses the sense of hearing and then gives a picture of her in motion. He first says of her voice, “I love to hear her speak, yet I know, That music hath a far more pleasing sound.” Although he insults

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EFEF GG, William Shakespeare, mistress’ eyes, william shakespeare, “my mistress’ eyes, mistress’ eyes sun”, Mistress’ Eyes, dreadful woman, eyes sun”, snow white, hideous woman, mistress poem, “my mistress’, speaker begins,