Shakespeare -sonnet_130_pp

SONNET 130
William Shakespeare

LESSON OBJECTIVES
 Identify the form of a traditional sonnets
through analysis.
 Understand the terms used to describe the
features of sonnets.

STARTER ACTIVITY.
 This poem is about love and writing- how
comparisons used by lovers (and poets) are often
unrealistic.
 Make a list of all the romantic comparisons that
the poet denies.
 Example:
‘Her eyes are not like the sun.’

CONTEXT
William Shakespeare wrote Sonnet 130. All of Shakespeare’s
sonnets go against the traditional Petrarchan sonnets. Petrarchan
Sonnets are love poems, which idolize a character called Laura.
Petrarch praises Laura’s beauty, worth and perfection, a mixture of
over the top and theatrical metaphors are used to describe Laura.
At the time of Shakespeare the genre of Petrarch sonnets had
grown stale and clichéd. Sonnet 130 presents a more realistic view on
love.
Shakespeare’s first 126 sonnets are addressed to an unnamed young
nobleman; this is unusual because sonnets tended to be addressed to
women. The other sonnets are addressed to a mysterious woman.
The speaker in the sonnets to the woman loves, hates and
simultaneously lusts for the mysterious woman. It was unusual for
sonnets at this time include feelings of hate and lust. This sonnet
could have appealed more to lower class people who would not have
had the time or money to make themselves into a fashionable beauty.

CONTEXT AND MEANING
During the Elizabethan times fashionable woman would
spend time and money on looking trying to look beautiful.
The Elizabethans believed that beautiful women were blue
eyed, fair-haired, pale skinned with red lips. Lower class
people who would have certainly agreed with the message
of this poem, that love and beauty are not necessarily
linked. Sonnet 130 mocks the Petrarchan sonnets by
suggesting that it is ridiculous to compare someone to
something, which is beautiful because you may be left
disappointed if you find your lover does not measure up to
what they are being compared to. Sonnet 130 is amusing
because the speaker takes the Petrarchan metaphors
literally and he literally compares his love. However, when
the speaker’s love does not compare well the speaker tells
the audience his honest opinion about his love.

THEMES AND IDEAS
The main idea running through the poem is
that people do not need to be beautiful to
be loved or to be in love. In the poem the
poet compares his love to many beautiful
things (sun, snow, roses), although she does
not measure to up these things the speaker
still loves her. Shakespeare can be said to
parody the traditional content of the
sonnet and expose its hyperbolic promises.
Love was a common theme in sonnets.

SONNET CXXX
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE (1564-
1616)
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:
If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head:
I have seen roses damask’d, red and white,
But no such roses see I in her cheeks;
And in some perfumes is there more delight,
Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.
I love to hear her speak, yet well I know
That music hath a far more pleasing sound:
I grant I never saw a goddess go -
My mistress when she walks treads on the ground.
And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare,
As any she belied with false compare.
The tone of the
first three
quatrains is
negative and we get
the impression that
the speaker is
dissatisfied with
his love.

SONNET CXXX
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE (1564-
1616)
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:
If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head:
I have seen roses damask’d, red and white,
But no such roses see I in her cheeks;
And in some perfumes is there more delight,
Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.
I love to hear her speak, yet well I know
That music hath a far more pleasing sound:
I grant I never saw a goddess go -
My mistress when she walks treads on the ground.
And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare,
As any she belied with false compare.
The poem is drawn
into a conclusion in
the last two lines by
use of a couplet ‘by
heaven, I think my
love rare’ here the
poet concludes that
he loves her although
she is not fashionable
beautiful.

MEANING
The main messages of this sonnet is that
someone does not need to be beautiful to be loved,
love is rare and it should be valued and people
should not expect love to be how it is presented in
poems.

FORM AND STRUCTURE
RHYTHM
 This poem is written in Iambic Pentameter.
 5 feet (pairs of syllables)
 Each foot has an unstressed , followed by a
stressed syllable.
 This gives the poem a regular rhythm

FORM
Shakespeare does follow traditional
English sonnets as Sonnet 130 as 14
lines and it follows the rhyming
scheme ABABCDCD etc. By using the
tradition rhyme scheme of English
Sonnets, Shakespeare can be said to
be using it to parody the hyperbolic
nature in which poets expressed their
love for others.

Each box is a foot.
Each foot has an unstressed and a stressed syllable
Each line has 5 feet.
If snow be white why then her breasts are dun;
If hairs be wires black wires grow on her head;

Q1. WHY ARE THE STRESSES
REVERSED IN THE FIRST FOOT OF
THE SECOND LINE?
 Coral = stressed then unstressed syllable
 The reverse stress emphasises how unnatural this
would be in reality, by interrupting the natural
rhythm of the line.
 This is an example of form imitating meaning.

Q2. IS THERE A CHANGE IN STRUCTURE
BETWEEN THE FIRST FOUR LINES AND
THE NEXT EIGHT?
 At first, each comparison takes up 1 line.
 Then the comparisons take up 2 lines.
 Effect? Develops the tone of parody in the eight
line section.

Q3. WHICH WORD IN LINE EIGHT IS
PARTICULARLY STRONG ?
 ‘reeks’
 Effect: to emphasise that the poem is a parody
of romantic sonnets, it mocks the language
(beautiful is replaced with ugly: ‘wires’ and
‘reeks’)
 The plosive sound, ‘k’ sound in the word ‘reekes’
creates a cacophony effect, which reflects the
unpleasant content of the first three quatrains
and the unpleasant description of the love’s
breath

Q4.WHAT WORDS IN LINE NINE
REVEAL THIS IS A LOVE POEM?
 ‘I love to hear her speak,’

Q5. WHAT ROMANTIC NOTION DOES
LINE ELEVEN-TWELVE DENY?
 ‘walking on air’ denies she glides along gracefully
as a goddess.

Q6.WHAT WORDS IN LINE THIRTEEN
EXPRESS THE POET’S STRENGTH OF
FEELING?
 he swears ‘by heaven’

Q7. WHY IS THE RHYTHM IRREGULAR
IN LINE THIRTEEN?
 The thought is different in the heroic couplet.
The rhythm emphasises the change.
 Does the rhyme scheme change?
 How does the layout in lines 13/14 change?
 This is a second example of form imitating
meaning.

Q8. WHAT IS THE POET SAYING IN
THE FINAL COUPLET?
His lover is as rare
(special/extraordinary) as any woman.
She is so extraordinary, that the poet
does not need to exaggerate her beauty
with false comparisons.
Any woman to whom she is compared –will
be shown to be false, because perfection
is a myth.
He loves her imperfections.
True and lasting love is based in realism
not idealism.

POETIC FEATURES
 The poet uses parallelism to compare his love to the standards of ladies in
Petrarchan poetry ‘If snow be white, why her breasts are dun’. The effect
of the parallelism is it makes the contents of the poem clear and the
audience knows exactly why the poet dissatisfied with his love.
 There is a lot of negative imagery in this sonnet. By creating imagery then
not continuing with it and then describing a new image, Shakespeare builds
up the poem and brings it back down, creates drama and keeps the reader’s
interest as they want to know where the poem will go next.
 The effect of the tripling ‘damaskt, red and white,’ builds up the beauty the
poet has seen in the rose. By building up the beauty in the rose, it causes a
sharp contrast between the rose and the poet’s love, who does not measure
up when compared to the rose.
 In this poem as in many poems roses symbolise romance. In this poem
Shakespeare uses the rose to compare idealised romance ‘I have seene
Roses damaskt’ to reality ‘no such Roses see I in her cheeks’.

Shakespeare -sonnet_130_pp

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