Sonnet 130
Ethan A. Proffitt
ENG 243
Phil Ferguson
11-17-14
Sonnet 130
William Shakespeare’s 130th sonnet is perhaps the most intriguing and conceptually bizarre. The majority of his sonnets on the subject of women detail how lovely and fair they are, or how he is unable to serenade them (often because of a superior man); this particular example is an utter contradiction to his other female-based works. The central idea of the speaker here is to describe the appearance of his love interest to someone else, in the most informative and vivid way possible. Sonnet 130 is crammed in every corner with imagery and figurative language, and such combination of words makes its conclusion every more brilliant. Here the speaker is a man, and obviously this is a man who is deeply entrenched in some sort of a relationship with a woman, as apparent by his fine details he gives of her. One could infer this is either a man with a very harsh, cruel personality, or simply a man who sees, analyzes, and expresses what he sees without inhibition. Either way he is painfully blunt with his adjectives. The audience of this descriptive rant could be anyone, as there is no introduction given or specific target established; the speaker simply begins firing off descriptions without any sort of prelude. Figuratively this sonnet is a goldmine. Seven of the fourteen lines are either a simile or metaphor. The first line contrasts the sun with the subjected woman’s eyes. He says her “eyes are nothing like the sun,” implying her eyes are not bright and happy, but rather dim, lifeless, and lacking a certain warmth (1). Next he makes a metaphor of her lips, remarking that “coral is far more red” than they (2). The imagery here leaves the reader with a vision of pink, fleshy lips that are hardly Marilyn Monroe worthy. In the third consecutive opening line of comparisons, Shakespeare says this woman is far from the pale white skin tone that was so coveted during his time; as it was a sign of a woman that did
ENG 243
Phil Ferguson
11-17-14
Sonnet 130
William Shakespeare’s 130th sonnet is perhaps the most intriguing and conceptually bizarre. The majority of his sonnets on the subject of women detail how lovely and fair they are, or how he is unable to serenade them (often because of a superior man); this particular example is an utter contradiction to his other female-based works. The central idea of the speaker here is to describe the appearance of his love interest to someone else, in the most informative and vivid way possible. Sonnet 130 is crammed in every corner with imagery and figurative language, and such combination of words makes its conclusion every more brilliant. Here the speaker is a man, and obviously this is a man who is deeply entrenched in some sort of a relationship with a woman, as apparent by his fine details he gives of her. One could infer this is either a man with a very harsh, cruel personality, or simply a man who sees, analyzes, and expresses what he sees without inhibition. Either way he is painfully blunt with his adjectives. The audience of this descriptive rant could be anyone, as there is no introduction given or specific target established; the speaker simply begins firing off descriptions without any sort of prelude. Figuratively this sonnet is a goldmine. Seven of the fourteen lines are either a simile or metaphor. The first line contrasts the sun with the subjected woman’s eyes. He says her “eyes are nothing like the sun,” implying her eyes are not bright and happy, but rather dim, lifeless, and lacking a certain warmth (1). Next he makes a metaphor of her lips, remarking that “coral is far more red” than they (2). The imagery here leaves the reader with a vision of pink, fleshy lips that are hardly Marilyn Monroe worthy. In the third consecutive opening line of comparisons, Shakespeare says this woman is far from the pale white skin tone that was so coveted during his time; as it was a sign of a woman that did