"My mistress' eyes"
William Shakespeare
After all of these exaggerated love poems, it's almost refreshing reading a more realistic description of a lover. In fact, the speaker references such poems and expresses that his lover does not live up to passionate metaphors, similes, and imagery. Nevertheless, the speaker claims that his love is all the stronger because he is able to say such average things about his mistress.
The speaker's mistress is entirely average. Her eyes don't shine, she has little color, her hair isn't pleasant to stroke, she has no sweet fragrance, and her voice doesn't evoke emotion like a music would. The reader might not understand the speaker's motives. Why was the poem written if there is almost no emotion about the subject?
An answer can possibly be found by examining the poem's departure from typical love poems. Perhaps the poem is a stand against the view that all women must be spectacular in every feature in order to get their own poem. Such a meaning also makes sense of the last two lines: "And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare As any she belied with false compare," (Shakespeare, 885). The speaker claims that his lover, despite lacking the common features of beauty, is equal to the most beautiful woman in his eyes. In other words, looks don't matter to the speaker.
No comments:
Post a Comment