Shakespeare Sonnets

I remember my friend went over this in class one day and sent it to me afterwards. I think this is just one of my favorite sonnets by Shakespeare. It's sonnet 130. It's pretty sweet. I thought I should share it. Also, if you have any sonnets that you personally like by Shakespeare, share! =)



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 damasked, 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.

I like that sonnet too. I have possessed it in my memory for about 5 years now, and it never seems to exhaust itself. The couplet is still as powerful today as it was when it was first written, and when it was first read by me.

What do you think of it though?

This is one of my favorites.
Reading sonnets praising and exalting the beloved, then going into Sonnet 130 at the first reading surprised me.

I love these sonnet, too.

Sonnet 18

Shall I compare thee to a Summer's day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And Summer's lease hath all too short a date:
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And oft' is his gold complexion dimm'd;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance or nature's changing course untrimm'd:
But thy eternal Summer shall not fade
Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest;
Nor shall Death brag thou wanderest in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou growest:
So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

Sonnet 73

That time of year thou mayst in me behold
When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang
Upon those boughs which shake against the cold,
Bare ruin’d choirs, where late the sweet birds sang.
In me thou seest the twilight of such day
As after sunset fadetn in the west,
Which by and by black night doth take away,
Death ‘s second self, that seals up all in rest.
In me thou seeest the glowing of such fire,
That on the ashes of his youth doth lie,
As the death-bed whereon it must expire,
Consum’d with that which it was nourish’d by.
This thou perceiv’st which makes thy love more strong,
To love that well which thou must leave ere long:

Quote:

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Originally Posted by JBI

What do you think of it though?

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I love it. It's beautiful and I like that it's not like a lot of written poetry of love. It's saying that shes nothing like the sun and when comparing her to other such beautiful elements, her beauty is nothing but he still loves her. It's touching and I agree the couplet is very powerful.

Back in Shakespeare's time, writing sonnets was the fashion. Lesser poets would use these never-changing clichés, lips like corals, the breasts as white as snow etc. In Sonnet 130 Shakespeare makes fun of that kind of poetry - and at the same time writes a very powerful sonnet of love.