The following was originally submitted as a homework assignment:
Your literary responses will be one to one and a half pages in length. This equates to 350-450 words. Choose ONE topic from the Analytical Topics each week. And, then respond to only one fellow student in 100 words. Cut and paste your work and student response into the student comment section of the assignment. There is NO need to make your work into a document.
Writing Assignments:
Literary Response #4
See topics below1. Shakespeare uses many comparisons in his sonnets. Explain the comparison used in “My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun.” Why is it a surprising comparison? What do you think is Shakespeare’s intention in using it?
2. How does the theme of betrayal keep reoccurring in Shakespeare’s “King Lear”? Is the play about betrayal or loyalty, or both? What does this play say about truth, falsehood and vanity?
For my response, I chose to speak on Shakespeare’s sonnets.
Jeremiah Hall Palmer
Professor Maurene Hinds
LITR210
19 October 2011
One cannot argue against Shakespeare having a certain way with words; harder still would be an attempt to argue that he had no knowledge of love. Tragically, though, many only think of Sonnet 18 when they want to speak of his grasp of love. If one were to come to the Sonnets having only knowledge of the cheery comparisons of an interest to being better than the brighter points of the summer season they would likely be taken aback by the language of Sonnet 130.
Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
(Shakespeare, Sonnet 130)
The opening lines of Sonnet 18 give the reader a vision of a warm beauty, bright and gleaming. The next few lines remind us that despite the wonderful days summer may bring, it still has it’s faults;
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer’s lease hath all too short a date:
(Shakespeare, Sonnet 18)
The lead into the negative aspects of summer aid, however, in showing how much more beautiful the love-interest is. Differing from this sonnet–with it’s bright beginning and ends–Sonnet 130, where we are led in with a darker comparisons.
My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun;
Coral is far more red than her lips’ red;
If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;
(Shakespeare, Sonnet 130)
Shakespeare continues to speak in a tone which may seem shocking. Rather than painting with pleasantries, the reader is given comparisons that lead in the other direction. At first reading, one may believe that we’re contrasting the sun and her eyes in order to give a better uplifting comparison as was done in the eighteenth–when we read the next few lines we see different. The opening line then gains a clearer definition that her eyes are dark and without that certain glowing spark. To the uninitiated this comes as quite the surprise, given the flowing beauty that has been written before. If we read from other sonnets, such as 116, we see that this is not the case.
Love’s not Time’s fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle’s compass come:
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
(Shakespeare, Sonnet 116)
In 116, Shakespeare shares his thoughts that love and beauty do not always go hand-in-hand. He states that beauty fades, but true love does not; why then would anyone find a woman being described as having darkened eyes surprising in one of his poems? I do not believe that there was any malice or any intent behind the descriptors used in Sonnet 130 other than the purposeful telling of how beauty and love is within–only seen by the parties involved. Love such as this is truly romantic and can be the most enduring. On that note, I would like to end by saying:
If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.
(Shakespeare, Sonnet 116)
Shakespeare, Wm. "Shakespeare Sonnet 18." Shakespeare Online. N.p., 27 Feb 2010. Web. Retrieved 19 Oct 2011 from: http://www.shakespeare-online.com/sonnets/18.html.
Shakespeare, Wm. "Shakespeare Sonnet 116." Shakespeare Online. N.p., 27 Feb 2010. Web. Retrieved 19 Oct 2011 from: http://www.shakespeare-online.com/sonnets/116.html.
Shakespeare, Wm. "Shakespeare Sonnet 130." Shakespeare Online. N.p., 27 Feb 2010. Web. Retrieved 19 Oct 2011 from: http://www.shakespeare-online.com/sonnets/130.html.
[EDITED 11/8/2011 to include comments received after the initial posting.]
The following comments were received:
Mandee Gondeiro:
I like this Sonnet and also your notes on it. There are so many comparisons that are more true to life I think. Over time things seem to fade but it doesn’t mean you don not love the person just that there is not the same infatuation that you may first feel for the person. In all a very somewhat dark but good Sonnet. What I love about Shakespear is that the writing maybe a little archaic but you can still get what he is saying, it is kind of nice not to have to translate quit so bad as some other writers of his time.
my reply:
True, those first little sparks that were once felt that may have blinded you from every fault may disappear; the depths to which you might go in order to serve and please your partner may grow shallower over time; but still the underlying love can remain. If you can make it that far, those feelings grow stronger and may even feel truer than the intoxicating love which was first felt.…maybe that’s part of the reason why my wife and I like to sing Conway and Loretta and smile at one another.
…of course, then there are days where we prefer to sing Meat Loaf…
Prof. Maurene Hinds:
Jeremiah,
Nice work with the analysis here (and I must admit, your other comment made me laugh aloud). That the poem seems to go against many conventions of the time–including some of Shakespeare’s own works–makes the poem stand out even more. In some ways, the poem has a “tongue in cheek” aspect about it, in part because he seems to recognize the ridiculousness of false flattery. 🙂 It would be fun to be able to meet him in person, wouldn’t it?
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