![]() ![]() He compares her “dun” (l.3) skin to the “snow” (l.3), her lacklustre lips with “Coral is far more red than her lips’ red” (l.2), or her bland cheeks by stating “But no such roses see I in her cheeks” (l.6), stressing the fact that she is not fair as a beautiful woman should be or maybe alluding to a lack of passion on her part. In fact, Shakespeare continuously contradicts the clichés often used to describe one’s beloved by parodying her apparent lack of compliance to the norm. The simile of his love’s looking “nothing like the sun”, is in opposition to the stylized customs of “Courtly Love”. When the poem opens with “My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun” (l.1), it immediately establishes the ironic tone consistently used throughout the poem. It is a Lyric Poem, as it is brief, expresses a strong emotion in a condensed form and retains a musicality when read. This gives the poem a flow of stressed and unstressed sounds, dictating it’s musical cadence. The attention to form is also evident in his use of assonance repetition of the “I” sound such as “white” (l.3) followed immediately by “why” (l.3) or the use of Alliteration with “H” sounds such as “hear her” (l.9). This form enables a natural progression of emotions to a culminating finale statement, encompassing his stance on the theme. The rhyme scheme is a traditional English or Shakespearian pattern of alternating abab cdcd efef gg. Sonnet 130 is a classic example of a sonnet written in one stanza, using an iambic pentameter, separated into three quatrains and a final couplet. However, Shakespeare’s mastery of the language manages to create a playfulness that finds a way of conveying his ardent fervor for his beloved. How does he convey his grand devotion to the “dark lady” all the while insulting every fibre of her being? At first glance, one might consider this poem to be decidedly distasteful and almost abusive. It is his way of using the blazon form (the grand praising of one’s lover’s virtues) ironically to portray his the object of his affection. ![]() In this sense, Shakespeare refuses the Petrarchan perception of love by actively emphasizing her flaws. Known throughout his body of work as the “dark lady”, this woman is seemingly torn apart by her apparent lack of classic conformity to the conventions of the time. In “” (also known more commonly as “Sonnet 130”), Shakespeare rejects the idea of idolizing his love’s beauty. Shakespeare, inspired by this method yet rejecting its’ ideals, reverses our expectations of the traditional themes expressed in sonnets. ![]() It is a classical type of sonnet that glorifies one’s love, usually a chaste woman of immaculate beauty and often loved by a Knight. Inspired by a Troubadour style of ode, his work is akin to an Hymn of Love, although unrequited. Petrarch, a passionate poet exemplifying the ideals of “Courtly Love” in his sonnets, rhapsodizes Laura, a married woman he may never touch. ![]()
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