Shakespeare Sonnet 130 Tone

In Shakespeare's poem “My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun” published in 1609, he successfully expresses a few more difficulties of love through a humorous tone. Women are too often held to high beauty standards which Shakespeare strikes down by helping the readers realize that beauty is in the eye of the beholder and that nature should not be compared to women in the first place. By making multiple comparisons between his lover and nature Shakespeare focuses on being honest and having realistic standards for his

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.

Poetry can help authors bring forward many different emotions through just the themes that they choose to deliver. Some poets show their sadness, disgust, unashamedly talk about their romantic relationships, and most of the time love. Poets can change the entire poem just by the mood that they set, the tone that they are using, or the imagery that they use to describe. Shakespeare is a big example of using different themes, tones and imagery. In three of his sonnets they deal with romantic love and they have been very widely popular throughout many years even though some of his writing can be hard to decipher.

Although Shakespeare appears to be conforming, he still elevates his work above the exhausted conventions of other Elizabethan sonneteers. Instead of objectifying his lover through trite comparisons, he declares that she is too beautiful and pleasant to be compared even to a day of the most enjoyable season of the year. While most consider the realm of nature to be eternal and that of humans to be transitory, Shakespeare accentuates the death of a season and imbues his sweetheart with everlasting life. He ingeniously inverts the scheme of things in order to grant his love perpetual existence through his poetry.

In many cases, love is misrepresented and not shown in its reality. According to The Human Experience, by Richard Abcarian, Marvin Klotz, and Samuel Cohen, “The rosy conception of love presented in many popular and sentimental stories does not prepare us for the complicated reality we face” (859). Thus in many stories and poems, love is not truly portrayed for what it really is. However, in “Sonnet 130,” Shakespeare does the opposite of this. The speaker states, “I have seen roses damasked, red and white / But no such roses see I in her cheeks” (5-6). In most love poems, the speaker would be stating that his lover’s cheeks are as red as roses. Despite this, Shakespeare is basically poking fun at those poems due to the fact that it is not normal for a woman to have bright red cheeks. Another example of this can be shown when the speaker

By doing so, Shakespeare further implies that it is not the physical perfections, or having a voice as lovely as music that make up love, but rather personality and more skin-deep qualities that make up true love. The utilization of excellent diction, and the use of paradox and allegory techniques throughout conveys to the reader the admirable tone the speaker seems to have for his love, and the realistic point Shakespeare tries to prove in that love is not just simply looks, but character and quality of a person that form a truer and deeper bond.

“My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun;/Coral is far more red than her lips’ red;” (1-2) When one reads those lines in Shakespeare’s “My Mistress’ Eyes Are Nothing Like the Sun”, to a normal eye it may seem as if Shakespeare is attacking his mistress with harmful words for no reason in disgust. But in contrast, if one looks closer throughout the poem, one begins to find abnormalities in its text, to some individuals it would simply state it as just gibberish. As it turns out, Shakespeare was only poking fun at how others would never would have a relationship as pure as his; any other individual would paint their mistress out to be a beyond what she actually is. That gibberish is just one of the literary techniques that authors put in place

In many of his later comedies, Shakespeare developed a habit of having young men and women fall in love. These comedies, “previews of the modern theatre,” usually end in a marriage, and are very lighthearted in nature. At first glance, Shakespeare’s works may seem complicated. In many ways, they are extremely complex, but, diving deeper into his text, there is an underlining meaning that might be extracted through in depth coverage. The use of contrasting the apparent versus the real is substantial in his plays.

Similarly, in the excerpt of Shakespeare's play Romeo and Juliet the piece of this story that we are analyzing is Act I, Scene 5, Lines 44-53. In this we witness Romeo expresses his affection to a female Juliet in a poem that better describes beauty. Accordingly,

Comparison between someone and an unworldly item is a common action performed by everyday people, however, comparing two things such as these can sometimes be hurtful and rude. The famous author, William Shakespeare, explains several ways that people compare others to impossible objects in his Sonnet 130 and also describes his feelings toward that comparison. William Shakespeare uses a judgemental tone to portray the idea that inner beauty is much more crucial than other beauty, though we tend to compare others to beauties that are far out of reach. A simplistic tone is being used in every quatrain of William Shakespeare’s Sonnet 130 to explain that no lady can truly compare to the unrealistic qualities people use. For example, in quatrain

The title of the poem “My mistress eyes are nothing like the sun” suggests that the speaker is not in love with his ‘mistress’. However, this is not the case. Shakespeare uses figurative language by using criticizing hyperboles to mock the traditional love sonnet. Thus, showing not only that the ideal woman is not always a ‘goddess’, but mocking the way others write about love. Shakespeare proves that love can be written about and accomplished without the artificial and exuberant. The speaker’s tone is ironic, sarcastic, and comical turning the traditional conceit around using satire. The traditional iambic pentameter rhyming scheme of the sonnet makes the diction fall into place as relaxed, truthful, and with elegance in the easy flowing verse. In turn, making this sonnet one of parody and real love.

The beauty of love is what this passage focuses on, it shows us the love that two young lovers have towards each other. Even though they both know that their love is forbidden, they still love each other deeply. Shakespeare’s writing skills helps the audience connect with the characters with

William Shakespeare is recognized for being one of greatest poets of all time. His works are still popular to this day. Many of his works included extended metaphors and similes with rhetorical language and were rooted in the nature of love. Two of his poems that are rather alike, but also very contrastive are “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?” and “My mistresses’ eyes are nothing like the sun.” They both contain a core theme of love or anti-love in some aspects. While these two poems are built around the same type of subject, their interpretations come across in separate ways. In contrast to Shakespeare’s “Sonnet 18” which is a serious love poem that contains imagery and metaphors, Shakespeare’s “Sonnet 130” is more negative and humorous but contains imagery and similes.