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Sonnet 130

            
             According to Constance Jordan and Clare Carrol, "English colonists" traveling "to the New World carried with them an English Bible and if they owned a secular" work of literature it was more than likely the "works of Shakespeare" (549). Shakespeare was not only a literature icon in his historical period but is an icon in the 21st century. Shakespeare wrote 154 sonnets celebrating Shakespeare's love for a young man, his rivalry with another poet and his troubled relationship with a woman who was known as "the dark lady." The first fourteen sonnets encourage a young man to get married and have a family. Beginning with sonnet twenty starts a long sequence of sonnets dealing with Shakespeare and having a lover of the opposite sex. Sonnet seventy-eight and beyond deals with Shakespeare's rival poet stealing his ideas and the final twenty-eight sonnets focus on "the dark lady"(552). Sonnet 130 is one of the final twenty-eight that deals with "the dark lady" whoever she may be. Shakespeare's reason for writing sonnet 130 seems to be that he is making his audience recognize that beauty can be found in anyone, not just those that possess outer beauty qualities. The woman in the poem does not have the most mesmerizing eyes, the reddest lips, nor soft flowing hair or rosy cheeks. She does not smell the prettiest or have the best smelling breath or a soft soothing speaking voice. However, this woman is a very rare creature whom Shakespeare finds most appealing. The "dark lady" has set new standards on what true beauty exemplifies.
             The speaker Shakespeare uses in sonnet 130 is "I." He uses himself as the speaker to express this sonnet. The setting of sonnet 130 is open to the reader's interpretation. No specific setting is indicated. The setting of sonnet 130 could be many places. For instance, Shakespeare could have been writing this sonnet in his bedroom reflecting on this woman. He also could have been chatting with a friend about her or maybe even writing in his diary of a time when he met this very unique woman.


Essays Related to Sonnet 130

1. Compare/Contrast of Sonnet 18 and 130

... is owed to nature"(Howell 12). In Shakespeare's eternal verse the lover will live forever, as long as there are people on the earth who keep the poem alive. In Sonnet 130 Shakespeare "catalogues the overfamiliar tropes while denying their applicability to his own mistress"(Pequigney 166). Her physical description is as follows: her eyes are not like the sun; her lips ... extremely humorous. The couplet at the end however, is most sincere, which completely changes the mood at the end of the sonnet. While it is clear that Shakespeare's Sonnet 18 and his Sonnet 130 are very different, ther...

  • Word Count: 1245
  • Approx Pages: 5
  • Has Bibliography
  • Grade Level: High School

2. Shakepere sonnet critique

... what true love really is and how it is unconditional and never alters. In both of these sonnet form poems Shakespeare includes a great quantity of imagery, tone, figures of speech, and rime scheme. The imagery in Sonnet 130 is very unambiguous. When I first read it I got this picture in my head of this terribly ... hindrance it may face, true love always makes it through and never shall alter. The tone in sonnet 130 is hostile, yet at the same time affectionate. That is what is so ironical about this sonnet. The fact that he is describing the whole time how unattractive her features are...

  • Word Count: 950
  • Approx Pages: 4
  • Grade Level: High School

3. Sonnet 116 And 130 From Shakespeare

... possible allusions. William Shakespeare uses this technique of tone to describe what love is about. In sonnet 116, he describes love in the most average basic context that has been seen before. However in sonnet 130, Shakespeare uses a totally new technique in describing love. These two different styles or writing ran perpendicular ... love. He wants to tell people what true love really is. This purpose of this attempts to define love, is more so, and introduction for sonnet 130. Shakespeare believed that "the marriage of true minds" (line 1) is the correct form of love. True love does ...

  • Word Count: 1107
  • Approx Pages: 4
  • Grade Level: High School

4. Relationship between sonnet 130 and pied beauty

... clichés and hold true to the statement, "Beauty is in the Eye of the Beholder."" Similar to other poets of Shakespeare's time, Sonnet 130, he used a combination of metaphors and similes to portray the eternal beauty of his mistress. However unlike Petrarch whose poems were written as a ... left out exaggerated metaphors. Shakespeare took a different approach in writing his poem and used a comical tone when comparing his mistress to a number of beauties. Sonnet 130 became a satire on Petrarch's poetry and his extreme exaggerations. Using Petrarch's conventional method, Shakespeare's poem...

  • Word Count: 833
  • Approx Pages: 3

5. Shakespeares definition of love in sonnets 18 and 130

... that the definition of Love according to these two poems is, inner beauty. This paper will first talk about sonnet 18, and break it down to its true meaning, then do the same to sonnet 130. And then at the end, I"ll bring it all together to show Shakespeare's true meaning of Love. ... In sonnet 18 Shakespeare talks about things such as time, age, and something that conquers all, an "inner beauty". This is sonnet 18 paraphrased by Alphonso Alvarez. Shall I ... to such beauty is to make sure that this person's beauty will grow and live forever in the minds of people who read this sonnet. ...

  • Word Count: 1118
  • Approx Pages: 4
  • Grade Level: High School

6. Analysis of Sonnet 130

Analysis of Sonnet 130 Shakespeare's Sonnets, a collection of one hundred and fifty four poems, are widely considered to be some of the most insightful and powerful poems of all time. Shakespeare, who was one of the first developers of the English sonnet, used the highly rigid form and structure of the poem ... as rhyme and rhythm and numerous other effects, all contributed towards developing the meaning, form and content of the poem. His one hundred and thirtieth sonnet, My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun, is a poem in which Shakespeare forms an argument against conventions to flatter...

  • Word Count: 830
  • Approx Pages: 3
  • Grade Level: High School

7. Analysis of Shakespeare's Sonnet 130

... of the most straightforward poems out of all the 154 sonnets. Sonnet 130 is one of the Shakespearian sonnets. Shakespeare's sonnets were published in 1609 but some of them were written a bit earlier. The first 126 sonnets are written to a man of great ... be involved with the woman romantically. No one really knows how to explain Shakespeare's life most people think he explains it through his sonnets. In the first two lines in sonnet 130 Shakespeare talks about a woman. This woman is not the prettiest woman Shakespeare has ever seen. The first line states, "My mistress' eyes are nothin...

  • Word Count: 448
  • Approx Pages: 2
  • Grade Level: High School

8. Shakespeare's Sonnet 130: Anti-Pertrarchian?

... uses metaphor, and compares the woman in question to objects of perfection. William Shakespeare was another renowned poet and playwright of Elizabethan times. He wrote Sonnet 130, which has been recognized as "Anti-Petrarchian" on numerous occasions. In Sonnet 130, Shakespeare uses displeasing description of his mistress in order to contradict the Renaissance's concept of the ideal woman, which is commonly used in Petrarchian ... the same devices that are usually found in Petrarchian sonnets make it appear to be more of a parody above anything else. It's satirical tone rejects Patrarch'...

  • Word Count: 604
  • Approx Pages: 2

9. Sonnet 130 and 31

Shakespeare Sonnet Sonnet 130 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 ... 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. In Shakespeare's Sonnet number one-hundred and thirty he makes fun of the typical love poem. Even when Shakespeare wrote these Sonnets the metaphors used in love poems were considered cliché, as ... they still are today, but they were an accepted way to express fee...

  • Word Count: 926
  • Approx Pages: 4
  • Grade Level: High School

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