Sonnet 130 Essay, Research Paper

SONNET CXXX

In our class we have been discussing sonnet cxxx. Many of my classmates believe that Shakespeare was saying that, although this girl is ugly, he still loves her. While others claim that he was not making any statements about her looks, but instead being realistic. It is my view that he was making a point of claiming that his girlfriend was a regular person and not a mythological goddess.

Most people have heard on television or in movies, some guy tell his girlfriend that she has eyes as deep as the ocean or lips as soft as velvet. Although these all sound very romantic they are probably not true. In the first line of this sonnet, Shakespeare says "his mistress? eyes are nothing like the sun". then he says that her lips are not as red as coral, and that her skin is not as white as snow. of coarse she doesn?t have white skin no person has truly white skin. So to assume that he was stating that she was then dark and pail lipped would be wrong. One cannot claim, that since he says she is not one thing, that he must be implying she is the opposite.

He goes on to say that perfume smells better than her breath. never says that In our class we have been discussing sonnet cxxx. Many of my classmates believe that Shakespeare was saying that, although this girl is ugly, he still loves her. While others claim that he was not making any statements about her looks, but instead being realistic. It is my view that he was making a point of claiming that his girlfriend was a regular person and not a mythological goddess.

Most people have heard on television or in movies, some guy tell his girlfriend that she has eyes as deep as the ocean or lips as soft as velvet. Although these all sound very romantic they are probably not true. In the first line of this sonnet, Shakespeare says "his mistress? eyes are nothing like the sun". then he says that her lips are not as red as coral, and that her skin is not as white as snow. of coarse she doesn?t have white skin no person has truly white skin. So to assume that he was stating that she was then dark and pail lipped would be wrong. One cannot claim, that since he says she is not one thing, that he must be implying she is the opposite.

He goes on to say that perfume smells better than her breath. never says that she has bad breath. In Shakespeare?s time people would cover themselves in perfume to mask their body odder. Most people didn?t brush their teeth. So it seams obvious that to them perfume smelled better that any part of a person. He then says that music sounds better than her voice. This was probably true as well, unless she was an opera singer who?s every word sounded like an aria.

Some people will claim that he likened her breasts to excrement (dun). I think that he was making an analogy. He was saying that her skin is closer to the color brown than to white. I think that Shakespeare was making a contention against the style of poetry of the time which was of the romantic movement, particular to the Elizabethan era. This sonnet and most of his other sonnets seem to be of the realist movement, which leans toward stating things as they are and not as they appear to be.

In conclusion, I don?t see any evidence that he was saying that she was ugly. I see that he was making a literary stand against what was popular at the time (and what is still popular in our culture). It is a fallacy of reason to state that since an author says that something is not true, that the opposite must be true. It think that he was making point to keep his view of this girl in perspective.