My Mistress' Eyes
William Shakespeare
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 she belied by false compare.
A love poem satirizing other love poems, in which women's lips
are
compared to coral, their hair to gold, their cheeks to roses, their
breath
to perfume, etc. Notice, too, how simply the poem is made, how
congruent
are lines and phrases, lines and images.
What statement about poetry itself is made by this poem? |
My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun;
a
Coral is far more red than her lips' red;
b
If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun; a
If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.
b
I have seen roses damasked red and white,
c
But no such roses see I in her cheeks;
d
And in some perfumes is there more delight
c
Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.
d
I love to hear her speak, yet well I know
e
That music hath a far more pleasing sound;
f
I grant I never saw a goddess go:
e
My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground. f
And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare
g
As any she belied by false compare.
g
A formally perfect English or Shakespearean sonnet: three
quatrains
of iambic pentameter, rhymed abab cdcd efef, finished off with a
couplet
rhymed gg. Equally important, we expect to find the sonnet's content
organized
in units that coincide with the formal divisions. This one marks that
convention
with its punctuation, each sentence spanning a quatrain and no more (as
I've
marked with the horizontal lines). One could as well divide it
up into single lines and pairs of lines encapsulating individual
statements
and images. In any case, we know we're headed for closure when we reach
the
little rhetorical turn "And yet" at the start of line 13. |
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Let Me Not to the Marriage of True
Minds William Shakespeare
Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
Oh, no! it is an ever fixèd mark,
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.
Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come;
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.
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Let me not to the marriage of true minds A
THESIS
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
Oh, no! it is an ever fixèd mark,
ELABORATED
WITH A
That looks on tempests and is never shaken; METAPHOR
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.
Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come; AND
ANOTHER,
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks, PERSONIFYING
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
TIME & LOVE
If this be error and upon me proved,
A CALM
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.
CONCLUSION
This sonnet uses its 4+4+4+2 structure more complexly.
I'll
talk about the meter and the rhymes in this one.
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I Being Born a Woman and Distressed
Edna St. Vincent Millay
I being born a woman and distressed
By all the needs and notions of my kind
Am urged by your propinquity to find
Your person fair, and feel a certain zest
To bear your body's weight upon my breast:
So subtly is the fume of life designed,
To clarify the pulse and cloud the mind,
And leave me once again undone, possessed.
Think not for this, however, the poor treason
Of my stout blood against my staggering brain,
I shall remember you with love, or season
My scorn with pity, -- let me make it plain:
I find this frenzy insufficient reason
For conversation when we meet again.
This 20th c. satirical poem illustrates the marriage of formal
and
rhetorical structure in the Italian or Petrarchan sonnet, its
older
form. Here the first eight lines, called an octave, present and
develop
a situation or problem. The last six lines, called a sestet, then
resolve
or alter what has been presented. The "turn" at the 9th line is often
marked
by some overt speech tag signalling a change of argument -- "then,"
"therefore,"
"but," "no," "and yet," or, as here, "however."
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I being born a woman and distressed
a
By all the needs and notions of my kind
b
Am urged by your propinquity to find
b
Your person fair, and feel a certain zest
a
To bear your body's weight upon my breast: a
So subtly is the fume of life designed,
b
To clarify the pulse and cloud the mind,
b
And leave me once again undone, possessed. a
Think not for this, however, the poor treason c
Of my stout blood against my staggering brain, d
I shall remember you with love, or season
c
My scorn with pity, -- let me make it plain:
d
I find this frenzy insufficient reason
c
For conversation when we meet again.
d
Note that this form calls for two "envelope quatrains," rhymed
abba,
and that the rhyme sounds are repeated, so the octave employs only two
rhyme
sounds. This also creates couplets of the last and first lines of the
quatrains
(e.g. zest/breast). English is a rhyme-poor language, so it's not
surprising
that English poets adopting this form in the 15th century also adapted
it,
evolving several alternate versions with more flexible rhyme schemes.
The
Shakespearean is the most common and enduring of the English forms.
I'll
talk about rhyme and meter in this one, too. |