That poetry meme again

[vvvexation]

Once more, it appears to be time to post random poems in our LJs and implore our friends to do the same. This time I'm going with Shakespeare. I've always liked the refreshing realism of this sonnet:


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 with false compare.

---

Incidentally, where the hell did this rain come from?

Comments

[pusifoot.livejournal.com]

Good for you! This is one of my favourite sonnets, actually, precisely because of its realism :)

[jen92373.livejournal.com]

Actually, it's not so much realism as anger. If you take it in the context of the other sonnets, he's pretty pissed at her and only gets more so...

[vvvexation.livejournal.com]

It doesn't read that way at all to me. I'm inclined to doubt the sonnets are all to the same person, anyway.

[somebodyelse.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I'm inclined to agree with you. He may have written some of his stuff just for the art. But mostly it was to impress the chicks. ;p

But seriously, thanks. I never got to studying his sonnets in school, and the few I read I didn't like much. This, however, was brilliant. Wonderful praise of a believable woman, and taking a shot at his fellow poets (and himself) at the same time.

[jen92373.livejournal.com]

Good! Cuz they aren't. Many of them are to a young noblemen. If you read them all together it sounds like a soap opera. He spends several sonnets trying to talk the man (who it sounds like he has a thing for) into having children. Then the "dark ladY" comes on the scene. She's married but he tries for her anyway. It doesn't sound like he has any luck, but his young noblemen does...and poor Will doesn't like it much.

I do agree with you though about the one sonnet when taken by itself. It's beautiful and very against the times- a touch of realisim in a world lost to fancy.

[vvvexation.livejournal.com]

I'm still not sure where the anger comes from even taken in context, unless it's anger against the world in general, or just plain defensiveness.

[jen92373.livejournal.com]

Jealousy?