Beauty And Beauty In Shakespeare's Sonnets

Shakespeare’s Sonnets is a collection of poems, which portray themes such as the nature of time, love, beauty and mortality. Among Shakespeare’s 154 pieces of fine poetry, Sonnets 1, 18, 60 and 146 stand out the most, attracting the attention of many critics. Shakespeare’s ability to summarize human emotions in a simple yet an eloquent manner through his verse, his powerful use of language, his large variety of metaphorical themes and his strong description of the characters and nature makes his sonnets unique and exceptional. In each one of his sonnets, Shakespeare portrays the value of beauty in a variety of ways. In Sonnet 1, he portrays beauty in terms of moral principle. This sonnet shows that beauty aims to proliferate itself by suggesting

This sonnet is perfect example of Shakespeare’s famous quote “Love is Blind”. According to Hale, “the lover’s objective comparisons of his beloved with nature and human artifacts of perfume and music, however unfavorable to the woman, do not change his subjective perception of her”. Shakespeare takes a different approach in this sonnet because unlike in a regular love poem, dark lady is not compared to nature or other praised elements that define beauty; rather she is contrasted with them on a literal basis. The speaker uses metaphor to compare his mistress with elements such as sun, coral snow and wires. He says her eyes are nothing like the sun; her lips are coral, not red; her hair is like black wires; her breath reeks and though he “love to hear her speak, yet I know/ that music hath a far more pleasing sound” (greenbalt.550.9-10). He thinks his love is rare and “as any she belied with false compare” (greenbalt.550.15). The question “why he is still with her? If he sees so many faults in her beauty “ raises in every reader’s mind and the answer is quite simple. The speaker knows his mistress doesn’t have those prized features and that she is not perfect but he still loves her more than anyone else. He believes false comparison of his mistress’s beauty for the sake of poetry is meaningless. Here, the speaker chooses to ignore the faultiness in his mistress’s physical appearance because he thinks she is “worth” it. This indeed is a true meaning of