My Mistress Eyes Annotations

Shakespeare’s sonnet, My Mistress’ Eyes, explores the common and oft-heard comparisons created concerning one’s love to the material objects of beauty, and considers the value within such correlations. As the essay explores these associations, it ultimately comes to the conclusion that such comparisons can not properly depict the love that is present towards a close other. As the speaker begins his sequence of comparisons regarding his “mistress,” he takes an unusual turn, pointing out that his mistress is, matter-of-factly, “nothing like the sun” (1). As the juxtapositions continue, the seemingly non-admiring writer describes coral as being “far more red than her lips,” snow being white in contrast to her “dun breasts,” and even finishes
off the quatrain by explaining how “black wires grow on her head” (1-4). By creating comparisons that value the woman in regards to other objects of beauty, these contrasting differentiations along with the rhyming couplet technique that contrasts objects such as the “sun”, which is bright and shining, with the color of “dun,” or a dull grey color, all paradoxically suggest that this lady, who is the object of interest to our speaker, is not seen as beautiful in his eyes, even though she is the one he claims to love; despite his love for his “mistress,” she is not beautiful to him(1,3). The sonnet continues in its comparison of the worldly objects of beauty to the other features of the lady. Instead of taking only one line to compare each feature of the lady of interest, two lines are taken to compare the “roses damask’d” with “her cheeks”, along with the smell of “perfumes” to the “breath that from [her] reeks” (5-8). As he continues to point out these differences, more and more doubt is instilled in regards to the value that this woman holds towards the man. Why would one point out all of these faults that are present in their love? And if all of these inadequacies can be pointed out regarding a significant other, then just how significant is this person to the one pointing out the inadequacies?
As the sonnet continues on into its third quatrain, the speaker takes a moment to depict a feature within his mistress of which he admits enjoyment.
As he declares how “[he] love[s] to hear her speak,” he suggests a strong turning point within his comparisons; that perhaps, after depicting all of the contrasting differences that he sees in his close other, he will go on to point out all of the pleasing qualities that he sees within his mistress, such as her voice (9). However, as the speaker splits this line by using the turning word, “yet,” he quickly returns back to describing her to the beautiful things that lie within the material world. Continuing the pattern of making comparisons across two lines, he contrasts the lady’s voice with the worldly music, which “hath a far more pleasing sound”
(9-10). The man of many contrasts finishes off his description of his mistress with the greatest comparison of all. While all of his other differences were in regards to the objects that lie within the material world, his last differentiation considers the mistress against an object that is not of the material kind; he takes the last two lines of this last quatrain to compare the woman to a goddess, admitting that he “never saw a goddess” in his mistress, particularly because of the simple fact that she “treads on the ground” (11-12). By this point in the sonnet, there is not much reason to determine the man’s love toward his mistress to be worthwhile.
Except for loving to hear her speak, this speaker has not described any of the woman’s attributes in a positive light. It is the last two lines of the sonnet that give way to the larger picture as to what the man intends to tell those who read along. While all of the other lines in the sonnet contain an iambic pentameter of 5 meters, this line stands out at 5.5 meters, beginning with the words “and yet,” signaling the turning point that will transform the story from being just a list of unfortunate comparisons to something greater. The man takes these last two lines as a means of conclusion, resolving that as far as he is concerned “[his] love [towards his mistress is] as rare” as any woman that has ever been “belied with false compare”
(13-14). It is with these ending lines that the man’s comparisons begin to make more sense; his long list of comparisons are not meant to serve the purpose of describing all of the faults that the he sees in the woman, but rather, to build up the main purpose of his writing; to effectively explain how his love for the woman is so great, that it does not need to be described with the generic and cliche comparisons of the beauty in worldly and even non-worldly objects. For how often does one hear of such strange results in comparisons such as these? By creating such a satirical poem, Shakespeare is successful in emphasizing this one true fact; that comparing a loved one to objects such as these is not necessary in proving the love that lies for them.