Sonnet 130 Essay

578 Words3 Pages
Rachelle Brady Mrs. Woods ENC 1102 6, October 2014 Sonnet 130 both fulfills and transcends the blazon tradition. It has a rhyme scheme split into three quatrains and a rhyming couplet. The sonnet contains ten syllables per line and uses stress on every second syllable. In the closing couplet it turns and takes the blazon to another form, showing the speaker is truly in love with his mistress. The rhyme scheme is abab/cdcd/efef/gg, which is alternating throughout with the exception of the closing couplet. Sun rhymes with dun then red and head, all the way through before ending with rare and compare which are not alternating but a rhyming couplet. The three quatrains are comparing body partd to other objects instead of most sonnets that compare body parts to other body parts. The first quatrain it spends one line on each comparison between the mistress and something else. The one positive thing in the whole sonnet is some part the mistress is (like) when you feel she is not. She is a woman with flaws, her eyes do not shine like the sun , her lips are not coral red and her breast are not white as the snow but she is his love and he gives no false compare he is just trying to be dreadfully honest to her. My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun; Coral 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. Sonnet 130, William Shakespeare lines 1-4; 1st quatrain The second and third quatrain he expands the description to occupy two lines each so that roses/cheeks, perfume/breath, music/voice and goddess/mistress each receive a pair of unrhymed lines. Thus creating the sonnet from becoming stagnant. Using ten syllables per line would call for a change in the word coral due to it sound with two syllables. The old English would pronounce it as cor’l to make it

More about Sonnet 130 Essay

Open Document