Miss

ENG 1501 Assignment 01
Unique Number : 221494

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. 1. Work out the rhyme scheme of this poem using letters, such as “a”, to represent the sounds at the end of each line.

2. What is the tone of the poem? Quote extensively from the poem to support your answer.

3. In this poem, the poet seems to be mocking or making fun of the Mistress`s looks. Do you agree? Give reasons for your answer by quoting from the poem.

4. In a classic Petrarchan sonnet, the poet idealises and romanticises the woman that he addresses. What is different and unusual about this poem? Give examples from the text to substantiate your answer.
This poem mocks Petrarchan metaphors by presenting a speaker who tends to take them at face value and amusingly tells the truth. E.g. My mistress`s eyes are nothing like the sun. The speaker insists that love doesn’t need these conceits in order to be real, nor do woman need to look like flowers and have breathe that smells like perfume to be beautiful.

5. Comment on the poet’s use of simile, metaphor, and personification throughout the poem.

6. Are the criteria for woman`s beauty, which are promoted in this poem, similar to those you are familiar with in your society? Give examples (from your society) and comparisons (from the poem).

7. Comment on the surprise reversal in the rhyming couplet: “and yet, by heaven, I think my love as fair / As any she belied with false compare” (lines 13-14). How does the speaker change the tone and content of the poem in these lines?
The poet changes the tone and content by saying even though my mistress may not be as beautiful as a rose, smell like perfume or have eyes like the sunn, she is a rare and natural mortal human being.

"My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun; / Coral is far more red than her lips' red;"
My mistress's eyes look nothing like the sun; coral is far more red than her lips are.
"If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun; / If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head."
If snow is white, then her breasts are a dull brown (in comparison); if hairs are wires, then black wires grow on her head.
"I have seen roses damask'd, red and white / But no such roses see I in her cheeks;"
I have seen roses of pink, red, and white, but her cheeks are none of these colors;
"And in some perfumes is there more delight / Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks."
And some perfumes smell more delightful than the malodorous breath of my mistress.
"I love to hear her speak, yet well I know / That music hath a far more pleasing sound;"
I love to hear her speak, even though I know well that music has a far more pleasing sound;
"I grant I never saw a goddess go; / My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground:"
I admit I have never seen a goddess walk, but my mistress, when she walks, steps (humanly) on the ground:
"And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare / As any she belied with false compare."
And yet, I swear before heaven, I think she is just as extraordinary as any woman that may be described with false comparisons.
Why is he saying it?
Sonnet 130 is a pleasure to read for its simplicity and frankness of expression. It is also one of the few of Shakespeare's sonnets with a distinctly humorous tone. Its message is simple: the dark lady's beauty cannot be compared to the beauty of a goddess or to that found in nature, for she is but a mortal human being.
The sonnet is generally considered a humorous parody of the typical love sonnet. Petrarch, for example, addressed many of his most famous sonnets to an idealized woman named Laura, whose beauty he often likened to that of a goddess. In stark contrast Shakespeare makes no attempt at deification of the dark lady; in fact he shuns it outright, as we see in lines 11-12: "I grant I never saw a goddess go; / My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground." Here the poet explicitly states that his mistress is not a goddess.
She is also not as beautiful as things found in nature, another typical source of inspiration for the average sonneteer: "My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun; / Coral is far more red than her lips' red." Yet the narrator loves her nonetheless, and in the closing couplet says that in fact she is just as extraordinary ("rare") as any woman described with such exaggerated or false comparisons. It is indeed this blunt but charming sincerity that has made sonnet 130 one of the most famous in the sequence.
However, while the narrator's honesty in sonnet 130 may seem commendable, we must not forget that Shakespeare himself was a master of the compliment and frequently made use of the very same sorts of exaggerated comparisons satirized here. We even find them elsewhere in the sonnets, and in great abundance, too; note that while his "mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun," his fair lord's indeed are, as in sonnet 49: "And scarcely greet me with that sun, thine eye."
This may lead one to wonder, is it really pure honesty that the poet is showing in sonnet 130, or is there also some ulterior sentiment, perhaps that the dark lady is not deserving of the narrator's fine words? Or perhaps she is deserving but such words are not necessary, as though the narrator feels comfortable enough with the dark lady that he is able to show such honesty (which his insecurity regarding the fair lord prevents him from doing)? There are many ways to interpret how the poet's psychological state may have influenced stylistic choices in his writing, but these sonnets do not provide definitive proof.

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.
This sonnet compares the speaker’s lover to a number of other beauties—and never in the lover’s favor. Her eyes are “nothing like the sun,” her lips are less red than coral; compared to white snow, her breasts are dun-colored, and her hairs are like black wires on her head. In the second quatrain, the speaker says he has seen roses separated by color (“damasked”) into red and white, but he sees no such roses in his mistress’s cheeks; and he says the breath that “reeks” from his mistress is less delightful than perfume. In the third quatrain, he admits that, though he loves her voice, music “hath a far more pleasing sound,” and that, though he has never seen a goddess, his mistress—unlike goddesses—walks on the ground. In the couplet, however, the speaker declares that, “by heav’n,” he thinks his love as rare and valuable “As any she belied with false compare”—that is, any love in which false comparisons were invoked to describe the loved one’s beauty.