Critical Appreciation Of Sonnet 130 Shakespeare

Consider this scenario; An individual is set up on a blind date with an attractive woman. This individual is told the woman “looks like a Barbie doll” with hair as yellow as the sun, cheeks as red as a rose, and eyes as blue as sapphire. It is unlikely your blind date will have these features. In the real world women cannot have the same physical assets as a Barbie doll—with sun yellow hair, and sapphire eyes because dolls are manufactured, and women are human—Imperfect and aging. In sonnet # 130 Shakespeare reveals the complexities of his writings as he expresses his love for his mistress. In regards to spousal relationships and matters of the heart it is in imperative not to hold another person to impossible standards because in time

In traditional love poems women are portrayed with having impractical features. Many times women are said to have roses in their cheeks, or that their breath smelled of perfume. The speaker declares, “no such roses see I in her cheeks. (6)” This image shows that Shakespeare is trying to convey the message that it is impossible for humans to have abstract qualities that romanticists would use. “Ironically, he still uses the stock imagery of love poetry—such as roses, perfume, and music to describe his love. As before, however, they are used in the most unexpected way and with a dramatic timing that fully draws out their element of surprise. (Woolway)” When Shakespeare describes his mistress’ breath, he uses the word “reeks”. Reeks, a word that might impress a horrid sense of smell on the present day reader was, in Shakespeare’s time, a word that just meant to emit a smell. I conclude by noticing the elusive effect of Shakespeare’s Sonnets. I find it difficult to read more than three at a single sitting, and as an entire collection they seem always about two steps beyond reach. They have a habit of breaking free from any interpretative system that tries to contextualize or control them and, however well one might think one is familiar with them, it is very much the case that I can always open my copy of Shakespeare’s Sonnets at random and quickly encounter one of them as though for the very first time. As a friend of mine once said, “if you think you have exhausted a sonnet by Shakespeare, it is you yourself who is exhausted.” Tidy and concentrated as the Sonnets seem, they are always ready and willing to break