StudentShare
Contact Us
Sign In / Sign Up for FREE
Search
Go to advanced search...
Free

Poem analisis of My Mistress Eyes are Nothing Like the Sun by William Shakespeare - Essay Example

Cite this document
Summary
My Mistress’ Eyes “My mistress' Eyes are nothing Like the Sun”, Shakespeare’s sonnet number 130, reveals some of the ideas of his time like gender social, psychological, and cultural. The general convention during those days was to write sonnets with love as the theme and compare the beloved to everything beautiful in nature in order to project her as a Goddess…
Download full paper File format: .doc, available for editing
GRAB THE BEST PAPER97.5% of users find it useful
Poem analisis of My Mistress Eyes are Nothing Like the Sun by William Shakespeare
Read Text Preview

Extract of sample "Poem analisis of My Mistress Eyes are Nothing Like the Sun by William Shakespeare"

My Mistress’ Eyes “My mistress' Eyes are nothing Like the Sun”, Shakespeare’s sonnet number 130, reveals some of the ideas of his time like gender social, psychological, and cultural. The general convention during those days was to write sonnets with love as the theme and compare the beloved to everything beautiful in nature in order to project her as a Goddess. This tradition was set by Patriarch. Shakespeare’s sonnets try to ridicule this practice and the poem under reference here is a fine example of this.

He speaks only what is true. He says his beloved is not at all beautiful when compared to several beautiful things in nature. This paper is a critical analysis of the poem to highlight the the issues the poem raises. In the sonnet, “My Mistress’ Eyes”, the speaker compares the beauty of his beloved to many things in nature. However, the readers who are used to listen to extravagant praises get surprised when he says “My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun” (CXXX, line 1). The impression he creates is that he is not likely to like her for this simple reason, because the prevailing social attitude was such.

Therefore, very eagerly the next lines are anticipated by the readers to see whether the other features and qualities of her are worthy enough to attract the lover. Unfortunately, the speaker proceeds with worse descriptions and comparisons: “Coral is far more red than her lips’ red: …/ If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head, /. …/ But no such roses see I in her cheeks” (lines 2 – 6). Obviously, one should wonder, particularly in sixteenth century, how one can love such a lady.

Shakespeare challenges various issues here. The social attitude that only a beautiful lady has a heart is called into question. Psychologically, it raises questions like whether true love can ever be generalized. The obvious question Shakespeare here raises is whether love is physical, social, or psychic. There is the gender problem too. Whether a woman is a mere commodity for the sensuous pleasure of man, therefore, comes much before the arrival of feminist movement. In spite of several deficiencies, as the convention demands, “by heaven, I think my love as rare” (13), says the lover.

This is the most important line in the poem. This comes as a challenge to the Petrarchian convention of falsifying the beauty of the beloved. Usually not so beautiful ladies, or even ugly women, were praised by the poet through their sonnets. The clear message is that if love is true, no comparison is required. As Keats rightly observed later on, beauty lies in the person beholding. This truth Keats and Shakespeare learned from their own experience. “My mistress when she walks, treads on the ground” (12), says Shakespeare, implying that she is not an unreal creature or any fantastic angel.

His beloved is of the earth, realistic, in all respects. As a perfect being she does not require any comparisons, and the readers are made careful to watch when excessive praises are showered by a poet. Looking back, one wonders whether the beauty highlighted in the good old poems was real or unreal. The structure, which is rhetorical, helps the poet to advance his argument in a successive way. Initially, he compares only one aspect of his beloved to some object in a line. Gradually he takes two lines to provide greater stress on his assertion -- perfume/breath, music/voice, and goddess/mistress.

This gives a gradual development, avoiding monotonousness in the poem. Shakespeare also employs almost all the senses, like sight, touch, smell, and hearing. This adds further meaning to the central idea that his beloved is “rare”. The lover does not believe in platonic love. He has experienced the physical love too, and has known her close by. Reference Shakespeare, William. “My Mistress Eyes”. The Complete Works, London: Hamlyn, 1985, 1058- 59.

Read More
Cite this document
  • APA
  • MLA
  • CHICAGO
(“Poem analisis of My Mistress Eyes are Nothing Like the Sun by William Essay”, n.d.)
Retrieved from https://studentshare.org/other/1419858-poem-analisis-of-my-mistress-eyes-are-nothing-like
(Poem Analisis of My Mistress Eyes Are Nothing Like the Sun by William Essay)
https://studentshare.org/other/1419858-poem-analisis-of-my-mistress-eyes-are-nothing-like.
“Poem Analisis of My Mistress Eyes Are Nothing Like the Sun by William Essay”, n.d. https://studentshare.org/other/1419858-poem-analisis-of-my-mistress-eyes-are-nothing-like.
  • Cited: 0 times

CHECK THESE SAMPLES OF Poem analisis of My Mistress Eyes are Nothing Like the Sun by William Shakespeare

My Mistress Eyes by William Shakespeare

The comparison of her eyes being “nothing like the sun” and “lips are less red more than coral;” gives the facial appearance of the mistress, though not exactly since exaggeration has been used....  This review discusses the poem My mistress' eyes” william shakespeare.... In the 1st stanza, Shakespeare spends one line on every assessment between his lover and natural or man-made resources such as the sun, snow, coral, and wires....
5 Pages (1250 words) Literature review

Analysis of Shakespeare Sonnet

In quatrain 2, the sun is personified and is given human attributes, such as an “eye” (5) and a “golden complexion” (6).... Name Instructor Course Date Analysis of shakespeare's Sonnet 18.... shakespeare's Sonnet 18, “Shall I compare thee to a summer's day,” can arguably be termed the most popular of all his sonnets.... The poem is in the traditional sonnet form.... The poet uses poetic devices to enhance the effect of the poem....
3 Pages (750 words) Essay

Analytical review on the presentation on women in shakespaeres sonnet 130

"By the time of Shakespeare one can detect a note of cynicism - in Sonnet 130 he writes 'my mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun.... (Shakespeare, lines 11-2) Therefore, it becomes quite obvious that Shakespeare challenged the traditional Elizabethan love poets who would compare a woman's beauty to something as great as the sun [when he says, "My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun" (line 1)].... william shakespeare is a renowned poet and dramatist, who has made incredible contribution to the portrayal of women in literature and his plays and sonnets offer an important source to analyze the role of women in society as well as literature....
2 Pages (500 words) Essay

Declarations of Unchanging Love in Shakespeares Sonnets

On cursory reading, one can hardly find two more markedly different sonnets than Shakespeare's Sonnets 18, Shall I Compare Thee to a Summers' Day, and 130, My Mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun, particularly since the former is addressed to a young man and the latter… However, a comparative, deeper study brings to light the fact that they deal with the same subject: the eternal quality of a love which is based, not on transient physical beauty, but on a spiritual beauty which transcends time. Sonnet 18 is arguably the best known Sonnet 18 and Sonnet 130: Declarations of Unchanging Love....
2 Pages (500 words) Essay

Shakespeares My Mistress' Eyes are nothing like the Sun

This paper "Shakespeares My Mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun" discusses the sonnet CXXX which is a love poem comparing the mistress' beauty to different natural images.... hellip; william shakespeare, the renowned playwright who was the national poet of England, produced 154 sonnets and other poems in his lifetime.... The mistress' beauty is compared to the sun; her lips are compared to that of coral, her breasts to that of white snow, and her hair is compared to black wires....
5 Pages (1250 words) Essay

Figurative Language in Poetry of Shakespeare

?? and “My Mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun” byWilliam Shakespeare In “Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer's Day?... On the other hand, Shakespeare's “My Mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun” appears to oppose the theme of the other poem in the sense that the ‘mistress' serves as a subject of distaste to the speaker.... Shakespeare even renders the narrator to personify the shining “heaven” with “too hot the eye” in giving symbolic reference to the sun on which some degree of exaggeration is used as the speaker mentions “gold complexion dimm'd” though in reality this is beyond possible....
1 Pages (250 words) Assignment

Narcissism and Misogyny in Shakespeare's Sonnets

Dating back between the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, as well as the first-half of twentieth century, speculations regarding the possible autobiographical elements and themes within the shakespeare's sonnets were the most dominant features of poetic commentaries.... A… r of heated and controversial debates thereby arose as people endeavoured to contemplate and understand what the sonnets could be implying concerning shakespeare's morals and sexuality....
15 Pages (3750 words) Term Paper

Shakespeare's Use of Homosexual Imagery in His Sonnets

This paper illustrates that the idea that shakespeare's sonnets depict homosexual desire has a long history, based primarily upon the dark imagery and the bitter tone brought into the sonnets, particularly as compared with the more common Petrarchan approach.... … This research will begin with the statement that shakespeare's sonnets break the established code for sonnets established during his lifetime and transformed them into something different, altogether more disturbing and capable of questioning to an even greater extent the idealistic romantic concepts of his time....
11 Pages (2750 words) Essay
sponsored ads
We use cookies to create the best experience for you. Keep on browsing if you are OK with that, or find out how to manage cookies.
Contact Us