Comparing Two Love Poems
Alyssa Harting
Professor Kate
ENC 1340
12 March 2012
Poetry Essay Reading “My Mistress’ Eyes Are Nothing Like the Sun” and “Shall I Compare thee to a summer’s day?” by William Shakespeare was very interesting. It can sometimes be hard to understand what the poet was really trying to get at but once you figure them out, it becomes really interesting to see their true meanings. Love poems are challenging to figure out if they truly are love poems, and once I figured out how they were, it was neat to see the true meaning of that poem. The poems “My Mistress’ Eyes Are Nothing Like the Sun” and “Shall I Compare thee to a summer’s day?” by William Shakespeare have a common theme but are very different in their approaches. The first thing that I noticed with these two poems was that they are both sonnets, they both have fourteen lines and a strict rhyming pattern. Also, they are both love stories talking about their …show more content…
He professes his love for her in this sonnet by making her beauty timeless, and it’s a more “traditional” love poem. Also it’s more about time and making her beauty “immortal” whereas “My Mistress’ Eyes are Nothing Like the Sun” is more about his love, and it is a very “non-traditional” poem when it comes to love poems. He doesn’t refer to his “mistress” as beautiful; in fact, he portrays her as plain, and this is unlike most love poems which often talk about how beautiful the loved people are. Shakespeare breaks this tradition, and when one first reads the poem, one may wonder, “How is this a love poem”? In the end though, Shakespeare explains that no matter what his mistress looks like, he loves her wholly and unconditionally whereas in the end of “Shall I Compare thee to a summer’s day?” he states that by creating this poem, he’s making her and her beauty last
Professor Kate
ENC 1340
12 March 2012
Poetry Essay Reading “My Mistress’ Eyes Are Nothing Like the Sun” and “Shall I Compare thee to a summer’s day?” by William Shakespeare was very interesting. It can sometimes be hard to understand what the poet was really trying to get at but once you figure them out, it becomes really interesting to see their true meanings. Love poems are challenging to figure out if they truly are love poems, and once I figured out how they were, it was neat to see the true meaning of that poem. The poems “My Mistress’ Eyes Are Nothing Like the Sun” and “Shall I Compare thee to a summer’s day?” by William Shakespeare have a common theme but are very different in their approaches. The first thing that I noticed with these two poems was that they are both sonnets, they both have fourteen lines and a strict rhyming pattern. Also, they are both love stories talking about their …show more content…
He professes his love for her in this sonnet by making her beauty timeless, and it’s a more “traditional” love poem. Also it’s more about time and making her beauty “immortal” whereas “My Mistress’ Eyes are Nothing Like the Sun” is more about his love, and it is a very “non-traditional” poem when it comes to love poems. He doesn’t refer to his “mistress” as beautiful; in fact, he portrays her as plain, and this is unlike most love poems which often talk about how beautiful the loved people are. Shakespeare breaks this tradition, and when one first reads the poem, one may wonder, “How is this a love poem”? In the end though, Shakespeare explains that no matter what his mistress looks like, he loves her wholly and unconditionally whereas in the end of “Shall I Compare thee to a summer’s day?” he states that by creating this poem, he’s making her and her beauty last