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    Analysis of Sonnet 130

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    Dolorfey Sumile
    Sonnet 130 departs from the conventions of describing a mistress using exaggerated beauty. Shakespeare does not portray his mistress as having ideal features like bright eyes, red lips, or fair skin. Instead, he describes her eyes as nothing special, her lips as not bright red, and her skin and hair as dull in color. While other poets compared their lovers to flowers and perfumes, Shakespeare says his mistress has no sweet smell and an ordinary voice and gait. However, through this unconventional honesty, he shows a deeper love for her inner qualities rather than outward physical beauty.

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    Analysis of Sonnet 130

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    Dolorfey Sumile
    365 views1 page
    Sonnet 130 departs from the conventions of describing a mistress using exaggerated beauty. Shakespeare does not portray his mistress as having ideal features like bright eyes, red lips, or fair skin. Instead, he describes her eyes as nothing special, her lips as not bright red, and her skin and hair as dull in color. While other poets compared their lovers to flowers and perfumes, Shakespeare says his mistress has no sweet smell and an ordinary voice and gait. However, through this unconventional honesty, he shows a deeper love for her inner qualities rather than outward physical beauty.

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    Sonnet 130 departs from the conventions of describing a mistress using exaggerated beauty. Shakespeare does not portray his mistress as having ideal features like bright eyes, red lips, or fair skin. Instead, he describes her eyes as nothing special, her lips as not bright red, and her skin and hair as dull in color. While other poets compared their lovers to flowers and perfumes, Shakespeare says his mistress has no sweet smell and an ordinary voice and gait. However, through this unconventional honesty, he shows a deeper love for her inner qualities rather than outward physical beauty.

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    © All Rights Reserved
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    365 views1 page

    Analysis of Sonnet 130

    Uploaded by

    Dolorfey Sumile
    Sonnet 130 departs from the conventions of describing a mistress using exaggerated beauty. Shakespeare does not portray his mistress as having ideal features like bright eyes, red lips, or fair skin. Instead, he describes her eyes as nothing special, her lips as not bright red, and her skin and hair as dull in color. While other poets compared their lovers to flowers and perfumes, Shakespeare says his mistress has no sweet smell and an ordinary voice and gait. However, through this unconventional honesty, he shows a deeper love for her inner qualities rather than outward physical beauty.

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    Analysis of Sonnet 130

    Sonnet 130 stands alone as a unique and startlingly honest love poem, an antithesis to
    the sweet conventions of Petrarchan ideals which were prominent at the time.
     Shakespeare doesn't hold back in his denial of his mistress's beauty. It's there for
    all to see in the first line. When Shakespeare was writing this sonnet it was all the
    rage to compare a lover's eyes to the sun and sunlight - Shakespeare completely
    negates this, using the phrase 'nothing like' to emphasise the fact that this female's
    eyes are not bright. They were, according to a line in sonnet 127, raven black.
    The second line focuses on the mistress's lips and informs the reader that they are not
    that red, not as red as coral (the marine corals), again the perfect colour for the perfect
    female.
    These first two lines are caesura-free, there is no natural pause for the reader, and the
    iambic beat is dominant.
    In lines three and four the anatomy of the mistress is further explored in unorthodox
    fashion. In Shakespeare's time the ideal woman was white, slender, blonde haired, red-
    lipped, bright-eyed and had silky smooth white skin.
    Not so the woman of sonnet 130. Her breasts are a dull grey-brown colour, not snow
    white. And she has dark hair that stands out like wires. Imagine that, comparing your
    lover's hair to strands of thin metal.
    Note the comma in both lines, a parallel, so the reader has to pause, breaking the
    rhythm, telling us that this is no ordinary poetic journey.
    The first quatrain is all about the appearance of the mistress, what she isn't like.
    The second quatrain takes the reader a little deeper and in the paired lines five and six
    the notion that this mistress is not your ideal female model is reinforced. She doesn't
    have rosy cheeks, even if the speaker has seen plenty of natural damask roses in the
    garden.
    If the classic, lovely and fragrant English Rose is absent, at least this mistress has no
    pretence to a sweet smelling breath. Her breath reeks, which may mean stinks or may
    mean rises. Some say that in Shakespeare's time the word reeks meant to emanate or
    rise, like smoke. Others claim it did mean smell or stink. Certainly in the context of the
    previous line - some perfume - the latter meaning seems more likely.
    Sonnet 130 becomes more abstract as it progresses. The third quatrain introduces the
    reader to the mistress's voice and walk and offers up no extraordinary claims. She
    speaks and walks normally. She hasn't a musical voice; she uses her feet to get around.
    This is nitty gritty reality Shakespeare is selling the reader. No airs and graces from his
    mistress.
     So to the final couplet, a full rhyming affirmation of the speaker's love for the
    woman, his mistress. Not only is the speaker being blatantly honest in this sonnet,
    he is being critical of other poets who put forward false claims about woman. He's
    not prepared to do that, preferring instead to enhance his mistress's beauty,
    deepen his love for her.
    In being brutally open, candid and unconventional, the speaker has ironically given his
    mistress a heightened beauty, simply because he doesn't dote on her outward
    appearance.
    Sonnet 130 - Metrical Rhythm

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