Theme of Love

To put it simply, the theme is that "beauty is in the eye of the beholder". '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 pi ture using a wonderful ombination of metaphors and a simile. !e starts the poem out with a simile omparing his mistress' eyes to the sun. !e then "ui kly swit hes over to using the metaphors to ompare the rest of his mistress' hara teristi s, su h as her breasts to snow and hair to wires. This poem is written in the traditional Shakespearean sonnet form. #t has three "uatrains and a ouplet. The rhyme s heme for the poem is abab d defefgg. The a sound is made of an '$un' rhyme while the b sound is made of an '$ed' rhyme. The sound of 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' respe tively and the g sound...

%hen a omparison is made between There is a &arden in !er 'a e by Thomas (ampion and Sonnet 130 by %illiam Shakespeare, the differen e between lustful adoration and true love be omes evident. )oth poems involve des riptions of a beloved lady seen through the eyes of the speaker, but the speaker in (ampion's poem dis usses the woman's beautiful perfe tions, while the speaker in Shakespeare's poem shows that it is the woman's faults whi h make her beautiful. #n There is a &arden in !er 'a e, the sub*e t of the speaker's affe tion is idoli+ed beyond reality and is pla ed so high upon a pedestal that she is virtually unattainable. (ampion uses metaphors and similes to ompare the lady to the splendors of nature. ,oses and herries are repeatedly used to des ribe various parts of the lady, like her rosy heeks and lus ious lips. !er teeth are said to be made "-o.f orient pearl a double row" /line 01. The white of the pearl, the lilies and the snow build the image of a woman of purity and...

Sonnet number one hundred si2teen and number one hundred thirty provide a good look at what Shakespeare himself defines as love. The former des ribes the ever$enduring nature of true love, while the latter gives an e2ample of this ideal love through the des ription of a woman who many all the 34ark 5ady6. Through the ombination of these two sonnets Shakespeare provides a onsistent pi ture of what love should be like in order to 3bear it out even to the edge of doom6/117, 5n8 191. To me the tern 3maker6 used by Sir :hilip Sidney to des ribe the poets first and foremost duty would refer to the reation pro ess, whi h produ es the end te2t. The dis ourse of the poet is to take an

emotion or event they up to that point was purely felt, and make it into flowing words, whi h in turn reprodu e the initial emotion. The poet is therefore a 3maker6 of poems as well as emotion. This emotion would not be present however if the poet were not human e2perien ing the ups and downs of everyday life. Therefore # feel that the p...

Sonnet number one hundred si2teen and number one hundred thirty provide a good look at what Shakespeare himself defines as love. The former des ribes the ever$enduring nature of true love, while the latter gives an e2ample of this ideal love through the des ription of a woman who many all the 34ark 5ady6. Through the ombination of these two sonnets Shakespeare provides a onsistent pi ture of what love should be like in order to 3bear it out even to the edge of doom6/117, 5n8 191. To me the tern 3maker6 used by Sir :hilip Sidney to des ribe the poets first and foremost duty would refer to the reation pro ess, whi h produ es the end te2t. The dis ourse of the poet is to take an emotion or event they up to that point was purely felt, and make it into flowing words, whi h in turn reprodu e the initial emotion. The poet is therefore a 3maker6 of poems as well as emotion. This emotion would not be present however if the poet were not human e2perien ing the ups and downs of everyday life. Therefore # feel that the p...

#t is evident in both &riffin;s poem and Shakespeare;s poem that their love for their beloved is mat hless< however the presentations and the personal interpretations of the two poets give a totally different message to its readers. #t is often in Shakespeare;s sonnet 130 that we reali+e he ridi ules his mistress and praises her in a way that misleads its readers to believe that Shakespeare doesn;t love her. %hereas, in &riffin;s Sonnet 3=, he puts his lady as the entral motive of the poem and this is obvious as almost every line in his poem begins with the word 3her.6 %ithout a doubt, the first line in both poems portrays a dire t ontrast from ea h other. #n &riffin;s poem, he ompares his lady;s hair to 3threads of beaten golds6 /line 11, whi h suggests the high status and attra tiveness of his lady. >n the ontrary, Shakespeare begins h...

?lthough love is the overar hing theme of the sonnets, there are three spe ifi underlying themes8 /11 the brevity of life, /91 the transien e of beauty, and /31 the trappings of desire. The first two of these underlying themes are the fo us of the early sonnets addressed to the young man /in parti ular Sonnets 1$1@1 where the poet argues that having hildren to arry on one's beauty is the only way to on"uer the ravages of time. #n the middle sonnets of the young man se"uen e the poet tries to immortali+e the young man through his own poetry /the most famous e2amples being Sonnet 10 and Sonnet AA1. #n the late sonnets of the young man se"uen e there is a shift to pure love as the solution to

mortality /as in Sonnet 1171. %hen hoosing a sonnet to analy+e it is benefi ial to e2plore the theme as it relates to the sonnets around it. Sonnet 19@ marks a shift to the third theme and the poet's intense se2ual affair with a woman known as the dark lady. The mood of the sonnets in this se"uen e is dark and love as a si kness is a prominent motif /e2emplified in Sonnet 1B@1. >ften students will be asked to hoose one sonnet addressed to the young man and one addressed to his mistress and analy+e the differen es in tone, imagery, and theme. (omparing Sonnet 117, with the theme of ideal, healthy love, to Sonnet 1B@, with the theme of diseased love, would be a great hoi e. 'or a omplete guide to the theme of ea h group of sonnets, please see the arti le The >utline of the Themes in Shakespeare's Sonnets.

Sonnet 130 is the poet's pragmati tribute to his un omely mistress, ommonly referred to as the dark lady be ause of her dun omple2ion. The dark lady, who ultimately betrays the poet, appears in sonnets 19@ to 1AB. Sonnet 130 is learly a parody of the onventional love sonnet, made popular by :etrar h and, in parti ular, made popular in Cngland by Sidney's use of the :etrar han form in his epi poem Astrophel and Stella. #f you ompare the stan+as of Astrophel and Stella to Sonnet 130, you will see e2a tly what elements of the onventional love sonnet Shakespeare is light$heartedly mo king. #n Sonnet 130, there is no use of grandiose metaphor or allusion< he does not ompare his love to Denus, there is no evo ation to Eorpheus, et . The ordinary beauty and humanity of his lover are important to Shakespeare in this sonnet, and he deliberately uses typi al love poetry metaphors against themselves. 'irst of all # will be talking about %illiam Shakespere;s Sonnet 130. Fow this poem has a rather odd element to the other poems. Some may say this is romanti but others may disagree. Fow the people who disagree have *ustified this by the way of writing and the use of words. %here the opening line is 3 Ey mistress; eyes are nothing like the sun<6

'irst of all # will be talking about %illiam Shakespere;s Sonnet 130. Fow this poem has a rather odd element to the other poems. Some may say this is romanti but others may disagree. Fow the people who disagree have *ustified this by the way of writing and the use of words. %here the opening line is

3 Ey mistress; eyes are nothing like the sun<6 This line is straight away implementing that either he is saying his lovers eyes are so beautiful that they annot even be ompared to the sun or he is saying his lovers eyes are nothing like the sun;s.

Shakespeare is e2pressing, though not in the first person, that he knows women are not the perfe t beauties they are portrayed to be and that we should love them anyway. !e uses two types of des riptions, one of their physi al beauty and the other of their hara teristi s to make fun of all those Gromanti ; poets trying to Gbrown nose; the girls they like. >ne of the physi al attributes, in the first "uatrain, that he mentions is his 3mistress; eyes are nothing like the sun,6 meaning she has no Gtwinkle; in her eyes. #n the first "uatrain, he also speaks of oral as being 3far more red6 than the lips of his mistress< this is a use of imagery to show her non$beauty. !e also re ogni+es that there are 3no su h roses6 on her heeks in the se ond "uatra...