The Theme Of Love In Shakespeare's Sonnet 130

The “gleams” on her face entice him still, but the “blazing” fire of desire in her eyes terrifies him to the point of solitude - she is no longer safe to be around. This illustration of Gascoigne’s conflicting feelings is furthered by the fact that this poem is a Shakespearean sonnet. Shakespearean sonnets tend to be tragedies or romances that describe love, and this poem comments on the torment induced by love. The author’s choice for the form of the poem reinforces the meaning as a whole, that love itself is a

In the poem, “For That He Looked Not upon Her,” the poet, George Gascoigne, communicates his fickle attitude towards his lover. With the use of standard Shakespearean sonnet form, exaggerated diction and vivid imagery he explains why the speaker is bound to avoid his ex-lovers eyes, since they can spell him to live a life with further deception and heartache. Gascoigne’s practice of sonnet form consists of the “ABAB” rhyme scheme, couplet, and four stanzas adding emphasis on the protagonists reluctance to see his lover’s face. As the poem progresses it becomes clear on why the speaker is warry. The poem includes paradoxing examples that elaborate his complex situation.

This Elizabethan sonnet by George Gascoigne is a tortured self-confession of one “He” who “looked not upon her.” Gascoigne effectively illustrates the speaker’s paradoxical feelings for a woman through a series of literary devices such as extended metaphors, imagery, and alliteration, developing an easily identifiable conflict between the speaker’s desire for his lover and fear of being hurt again. The first stanza introduces us to the central paradox of the poem: why does the speaker “take no delight” in ranging his eyes “about the gleams” on his lover’s beautiful face? To answer this question, the speaker employs two extended metaphors that vividly illustrate this conundrum.

The repetition of the words ‘slave’ and ‘servant’ establish the overall theme of a binding love. Shakespeare seems to share Petrarch’s idea that love is an almost otherworldly force. Shakespeare uses anaphora in lines 4,5,7, and 9 with his repetition of the word ‘nor.’ These constant contradictions make the reader think that the the speaker believes the exact opposite of what he is saying. His word choice shows the passive aggressive feelings, and underlying resentment the speaker has for his love.

Her sonnet may have fourteen lines, but it does not follow a rhyme scheme or iambic pentameter (Mullen Lines 1-14). By breaking away from the standard conventions and structure of a sonnet, she creates a creative and sarcastic method of criticizing Shakespeare’s typical male speaker. Criticizing this classic speaker plays into Mullen’s criticism of sonnets that focus on love as a whole. Her sarcastic and comedic word choice directly contrasts Shakespeare’s, which permits her criticism. Shakespeare’s speaker focuses on the woman’s ugly features in order to bring out her personality (Lines 1-14).

Structurally “Dim Lady” has little to do with the firm guidelines of true sonnets, however this choice gives Mullens a greater degree of creative liberty when it comes to the rescripted Sonnet 130. The more contemporary style of free verse rather than structurally rigid helps to create the more modern feeling of the overall work and in turn allows Mullens to shape Shakespeare's work in a new

Helena, one of the main characters of this Shakespearean comedy, expresses her thoughts on love through a soliloquy. This soliloquy is written in verse and in “iambic pentameter” - five unaccented syllables, each followed by an accented one - as the rest of the play is, but with the characteristic that it rhymes. The soliloquy is composed of “heroic couplets” - rhyming verse in iambic pentameter- in opposition to “blank verse” - unrhymed iambic pentameter- which is the predominant type of verse in the play. Helena’s soliloquy, formed, as mentioned before, by heroic couplets, follows the rhyme scheme AABBCC as can be seen in this extract: “Things base and vile, folding no quantity, (A)
Love can transpose to form and dignity: (A)
Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind; (B)
 And therefore is wing 'd Cupid painted blind: (B)


TDA Shakespeare and Bradstreet Authors William Shakespeare and Anne Bradstreet claim a unique love through their works of literature. It is ironic that the two authors are juxtaposed for their boasting of knowing true love because one is a man of the theatre and the other is a Puritan housewife. They both have remarkable and one-of-a-kind styles of writing. To My Dear and Loving Husband and Sonnet 18 both share a theme of time. These works of literature have become well-known and classic for their strong professions of love.

Sonnet 130: My Mistress’ Eyes Are Nothing Like The Sun (1609) by William Shakespeare is nothing like the average romantic poem. Instead of boasting about his mistress’s beauty and making unrealistic comparisons he Comically appreciates her natural beauty and appearance, without the use of flattering clichés. Some Argue that Shakespeare might have been misogynistic and insulting to women by body shaming is mistress. Is it thus apparent that people may have different interpretations and understanding of sonnets or poems regardless of the environment or period of the reading? Though I believe that this is truly a love poem, in this analysis both interpretations will be represented.

The two poems I will be comparing and contrasting in this essay are two of William Shakespeare 's most popular sonnets. Sonnets in chapter 19, 'Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day? ', and in chapter 23, 'Let me not to the marriage of true minds, ' of our Literature book. Both of these poems deal with the subject of love but each poem deals with its subject matter in a slightly different way. Each also has a different purpose and audience. In the case of 'Shall I compare thee ' the audience is meant to be the person Shakespeare is writing the sonnet about.

In Shakespeare’s “Sonnet 148”, the speaker is clearly a man that is in love, but seems to think of love in a negative way. He feels that love itself is tricking him and clouding his judgment. He sees his love as far better than everyone else sees her to be. He states, “O ‍me, what eyes hath love put in my head/ Which have no corresponde‍nce with true sight!”

Love is a very strong feeling and it 's portrayed in many ways. In Hamlet, Ophelia, the daughter of Polonius, has fallen for The young Prince Hamlet. In the play, Hamlet confuses us in the beginning because we think he’s just using her for pleasure, and not that he actually has feelings for her. But at the end of the story, we see a whole other side to the story. We see how much he actually loves her and not that he was using her for his own needs.

William Shakespeare’s sonnets are closely related in the idea that the theme as well as the subject of the poem remain consistent. A distinctive factor among Shakespeare’s sonnets however, is that they each contain somewhat varying tones. Two specific sonnets that prove this are “Sonnet 71” and “Sonnet 73” respectively. Both sonnets refer to the same subject, what is seemingly the speaker of the poem’s lover or mistress. The theme of death and dying are ones which remain present throughout each text.

Though both poems are exquisite expositions of love the question remains as to which one demonstrates the most superb love. Shakespeare 's “Sonnet 116” begins by depicting his version if the perfect love. According to Shakespeare, love must be a “marriage of two minds”. This ideology in itself exhibits a higher level love than common man could ever experience. For love to truly be Neoplatonic, it must merge every aspect of a relationship beyond the physical.

Throughout William Shakespeare’s “Sonnet 130,” the reader is constantly tricked into thinking he will compare his mistress to something beautiful and romantic, but instead the speaker lists beautiful things and declares that she is not like them. His language is unpredictable and humor is used for a majority of the poem. This captivating sonnet uses elements such as tone, parody, images, senses, form, and rhyme scheme to illustrate the contradicting comparisons of his mistress and the overarching theme of true love. Shakespeare uses parody language to mock the idea of a romantic poem by joking about romance, but ultimately writes a poem about it.