Drayton's Sonnet 130 And The Petrarchan Sonnet

Shakespeare’s sonnet 130, “My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun” and Pablo Neruda’s “My ugly love” are popularly known to describe beauty in a way hardly anyone would write: through the truth. It’s a common fact that modern lovers and poets speak or write of their beloved with what they and the audience would like to hear, with kind and breathtaking words and verses. Yet, Shakespeare and Neruda, honest men as they both were, chose to write about what love truly is, it matters most what’s on the inside rather than the outside. The theme of true beauty and love are found through Shakespeare and Neruda’s uses of imagery, structure, and tone.

In life people sometimes face different tribulations that bring them down such as being judged for their physical appearance or even the way they are. Writers in literature who are known to write about romantic things sometimes use this as a way to create things to write about. In sonnet 130, Shakespeare helps us understand that even though his wife has different flaws he still loves her for who she is as a person. Shakespeare uses a critical and judgmental tone to show that even though he compares his mistress to all of these things he still loves her even though her physical appearance isn’t the best.

Shakespeare examines love in two different ways in Sonnets 116 and 130. In the first, love is treated in its most ideal form as an uncompromising force (indeed, as the greatest force in the universe); in the latter sonnet, Shakespeare treats love from a more practical aspect: it is viewed simply and realistically without ornament. Yet both sonnets are justifiable in and of themselves, for neither misrepresents love or speaks of it slightingly. Indeed, Shakespeare illustrates two qualities of love in the two sonnets: its potential and its objectivity. This paper will compare and contrast the two sonnets by Shakespeare and show how they represent two different attitudes to love.

Sonnets are known for having a rigid format and being the hoard of poets’ flowery love confessions and tormenting heartache. While most poets generally stick to that cliche topic of love and the traditional English or Petrarchan structures, sonnets are not defined by these common features. Both Shakespeare’s “My mistress’ eyes are…” and Collins’s “Sonnet” satirically poke at typical sonnets, however, Shakespeare follows the standard English sonnet style while parodying the classic subject of love to show how ridiculous and idealistic love sonnets can be. On the other hand, Collins breaks free from those stern sonnet rules to joke about the strictness of sonnet structures while defining typical sonnet rules.

A sonnet is a poem of fourteen lines that rhyme in a particular pattern. William Shakespeare’s sonnets were the only non-dramatic poetry that he wrote. Shakespeare used sonnets within some of his plays, but his sonnets are best known as a series of one hundred and fifty-four poems. The series of one hundred and fifty-four poems tell a story about a young aristocrat and a mysterious mistress. Many people have analyzed and contemplated about the significance of these “lovers”. After analysis of the content of both the “young man” sonnets and the “dark lady sonnets”, it is clear that the poet, Shakespeare, has a great love for the young man and only lusts after his mistress.

     During the Renaissance, it was common for poets to employ Petrarchan conceit to praise their lovers. Applying this type of metaphor, an author makes elaborate comparisons of his beloved to one or more very dissimilar things. Such hyperbole was often used to idolize a mistress while lamenting her cruelty. Shakespeare, in Sonnet 18, conforms somewhat to this custom of love poetry, but later breaks out of the mold entirely, writing his clearly anti-Petrarchan work, Sonnet 130.

In the poem “Unholy sonnet 5,” Mark Jarman shows us a philosophical reflection about what is worth to do in this life based on a repetition of some patters during the poem. The structure of this poem make it a Petrarchan sonnet. This kind of sonnet is composed by two arguments, the first consist on two octaves with a rhyme ABBA and ABBA. Denoting repetition of the words have, hive, mean and men; highlighting these as significant to found sense to the first argument of the sonnet. In a deeper reading of the poem, this first argument is centered in questioning que purpose and meaning of life for human beings, coinciding with the pattern of rhymes and sounds. Following this structure of a Petrarchan sonnet, the second argument is composed by a sestet. This means that the sonnet has a rhyme CDECDE, denoting repetition of the words joy, death and forget; highlighting these as significant to found sense to the second argument of the sonnet. Also, the second argument of the poem centered on a practical analysis of what is worth to do in life (enjoying) before the death, coinciding with the pattern of rhymes and sounds.

In 2010 Billy Collins writes Sonnet, a piece of literary work I consider to be the antihero of sonnets. Collins ironically follows neither the constructs of a Shakespearean nor Petrarchan Sonnet throughout. He also creatively breathes new life into a strict art form while rejecting the historical rules a sonnet must follow in this work. Upon further review of Sonnet, it becomes clear that this deliberate rule breaking is a skilled nod & side-step to historic norms and a promotion of a new age of creativity in the making of a sonnet.

Since its introduction in the 1530s, nearly every major British and American poet has made use of the form" (Sonnet xxi). In Versification, James McAuley defines that the sonnet is, "In the strict sense, a fourteen-line poem usually in iambic pentameters. The Italian or petrachan type, consists of an octet, usually rhymed cdecde or in some permutation of these. The English sonnet type consists of three quatrains plus a concluding couplet, rhymed variously, the Shakespearian form being abab cdcd efef gg. In sixteenth- and seventeenth-century use, the term was also loosely applied to any lyric poem, especially a love-poem, as in [John] Donne's (1572-1631) Songs and Sonnets" (82).

about all her let downs when it comes to beauty and so compares it to

In the first two quatrains, Shakespeare is judgmental towards his mistress and how she does not compare with other beautiful worldly things. For example, the first line of the sonnet begins, “My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun” (line 1). The speaker uses this comparison to say that the eyes of his mistress are not bright and they do not give off a

This essay will address how Shakespeare and Rossetti engage with the sonnet form, through Rossetti’s “A Sonnet” and Shakespeare’s “Sonnet 52”. Both poets arguably subvert the traditional Petrarchan sonnet genre, though in different ways. Rossetti’s ‘A Sonnet’ explores the sonnet as an art form rather than as a means of currency, as sonnets were seen to be at the time, and how if treated as a commodity, the value of a sonnet is diminished. Similarly, Shakespeare’s ‘Sonnet 52’ explores the connection between frequency and worth. However, ‘Sonnet 52’ adheres more closely to traditional sonnet form, as the prevalent theme is romance, and the idealisation of the “fair youth”. In contrast to Shakespeare’s adherence to the traditional romantic focus of sonnets, Rossetti subverts the genre by using “The Sonnet” as a metatextual device to explore his ideas around the form of a sonnet itself.

Sonnet 130 is a parody of the conventional love sonnet, made popular by Petrarch and, made popular in England by Sidney’s use of the Petrarchan form in his epic poem Astrophel and Stella. When comparing the stanzas of A & S to Sonnet 130, the reader can clearly see that the sonnet does not use grandiose metaphors or allusions to build his beloved into a divine figure. Despite it being an obvious parody, it will be compared to the chosen lines from the Tempest. In Shakespeare’s day, metaphors that allude to putting the beloved on a pedestal of beauty had already become a cliché, but they were an accepted technique for writing love poetry nonetheless. The way these poems would describe the poet’s lover was high idealized, making comparisons

In the following chapters, I am primarily concerned with how the sonnet functions as a

Francesco Petrarch, Sir Thomas Wyatt and Henry Howard, the Earl of Surrey were three of the greatest poets in history. They were truly visionaries in their work and with their origination of the sonnet, they crafted poems of love in all its incredible forms. With these poets, we are able to see how the sonnet evolved into the form popularized by Shakespeare and even how it still influences the modern poetry of today. Petrarch, known as the "Father of Humanism," first wrote the Italian sonnet during the 14th century. Wyatt and Surrey, who lived and were close friends during the tumultuous reign of Henry VIII in England, composed respective translations of some of Petrarch 's