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- Symptoms of Love, Graves
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Sonnet 130
William Shakespeare 1564-1616
Shakespeare, in his numerous sonnets, has written about different types of love, and shows an original, somewhat subversive view of romantic love, devoid of the usual romantic comparisons. In fact in Sonnet 130 he mocks the conventional language of love. How does the language used show that he is mocking conventional notions of beauty? Consider also aspects of Shakespeare’s uses of form and structure.
‘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 belied with false compare.’
