Hieu Nguyen
Barbi Fowler
English 1302
1 April 2015
Analyzing Poem In the story “My Mistress’s Eyes are Nothing Like the Sun” William Shakespeare uses imagery to describe the person he loves. We learn that Shakespeare uses imagery to show his loves mistress’ inner beauty despite her outer appearance. When reading the poem initially we believe that Shakespeare is making fun of his mistress with the imagery “My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun; (line 1)” but upon reading deeper we see that Shakespeare is saying he loves her despite her appearance. Shakespeare uses negative qualities to illustrate his mistress’ appearance. But then Shakespeare changes in the last four line when he describe his inner feelings for her. Shakespeare first starts out describing his mistress’ appearance with things that we do not conceive as beautiful. When he says “Coral is far more red than her lips’ red ;( line 2)” he is saying that even something as dark as coral has more red than her lips. This goes on throughout the poem until it change in the eleventh line of the poem to show the readers despite how other sees her as beautiful despite how other people see her. With this poem “My Mistress’ Eyes are Nothing Like the Sun” Shakespeare challenges the idea of beauty by making fun of what others commonly think of beauty. With the imagery that Shakespeare uses to describe his mistress we believe that she is an ugly person but we do not see the inner beauty that Shakespeare sees in his mistress. At the end of Shakespeare sonnet he describes how much he loves despite of what she look. When he says, “ I grant I never saw a goddess go:(line 11)” he is saying that he may never see a goddess but his mistress is close to one as they get. Despite what she looks like Shakespeare’s love for her is one of a kind because he loves her for her and not her looks. Shakespeare also believes that if his mistress reads his sonnet she will know that Shakespeare loves her for her beauty despite what common society believes is beauty. During Shakespeare’s time, traditional Petrarchan style was widely used so Shakespeare uses it to point fun at it. Traditional Petrarchan poems are love poems where the poet uses imagery to compare their loved one to items that we think are beautiful like “your voices are like heaven’s bells”. Shakespeare uses Petrarchan similarly and yet undercuts this convention by saying “That music hath a far more pleasing sound;(line 10)” This is similar to the other quote because it uses imagery in the same way, but it is different from it in how it uses imagery to describe the person. By undercutting the Petrarchan style Shakespeare shows how it is ridiculous to compare the look of a person to an inanimate object. Shakespeare also shows how a Petrarchan poem is corny when used to compare a person to an object “If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;(line 3)” is just like her skin is white as snow. If a poet uses Petrarchan to describe a woman by saying that her skin is white as snow Shakespeare think that the woman will think that the poet is corny. By writing “My Mistress’ Eyes are Nothing Like the Sun” Shakespeare shows how corny and ridiculous Petrarchan style poetry can be using imagery the why he does. The poem “My Mistress’ Eyes are Nothing Like the Sun” is also unlike any traditional love poem where