Thursday, September 20, 2012

What are three physical objects that the speaker focuses on in the beginning of Sonnet 130?

In the first three lines of Shakespeare's Sonnet 130, the three objects that the speaker compares to his lover are the sun, coral, and snow. In this ironic twist on a love poem, the speaker uses these objects to describe how his lover's eyes are nothing like the brightness of the sun, her lips faded compared to the red of coral, and her breasts dulled in comparison to the bright white of the snow. One might think that in using these comparisons that the speaker is saying that he is not truly in love with his mistress. However, the final lines of the sonnet reveal that he is, in actuality, very much in love with his mistress, and that her physical appearance does not define his love for her.

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