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Feb 2, 2021 · Romeo, perhaps Shakespeare’s most famous lover, also describes Love this way: “Alas that love, whose view is muffled still, / Should without eyes see pathways to his will” (Romeo and Juliet, 1.1). “Love comforteth like sunshine after rain.”. – Venus and Adonis, line 799.
- Valentine's Day
Discover Shakespeare’s stories and the world that shaped...
- Valentine's Day
- Summary
- Structure
- Poetic Techniques
- Detailed Analysis
The poem combines male and female attributes in the first few lines. It is unclear at first as the speaker is discussing this person’s beauty if they are in fact a man or a woman. He says that their face is as beautiful as a woman’s but their mind is less fickle. They are less liable to cheat. The speaker discusses in the last lines of the poem how...
The poem is structured in the form which has come to be synonymous with the poet’s name. It made up of three quatrains, or sets of four lines, and one concluding couplet, or set of two rhyming lines. The poem follows a consistent rhyme scheme that conforms to the pattern of ABAB CDCD EFEF GG and it is written in iambic pentameter. But, there is a d...
Shakespeare makes use of several poetic techniques in ‘Sonnet 20’. These include but are not limited to alliteration, personification, and metaphor. The first of these, alliteration, occurs when words are used in succession, or at least appear close together, and begin with the same sound. For example, “master-mistress” in line two and “false” and ...
Lines 1-4
In the first lines of ‘Sonnet 20,’ the speaker begins by presenting a series of images that confuse whether or not he is speaking about a man or a woman. This is maintained throughout the poem until the last few lines. He tells the intended listener, who is usually considered to ba young man (the Fair Youth), that he has a face that’s as beautiful as a woman’s. It’s so beautiful that he doesn’t need to change. It was painted (as if with makeup) by nature. The second line has a famous word/phr...
Lines 5-8
In the second quatrain of ‘Sonnet 20’the speaker goes on to say that the listener has eyes are that more beautiful than a woman’s. But, as he stated before, this listener is “less false in rolling” than women. He is less inclined to cheat. His eyes “Gild,” or cover in gold, everything that they gaze at. This is a beautiful metaphor that is used to say that everything is improved or blessed by the young man’s gaze. The seventh and eighth lines are interesting ones. They allude to the young per...
Lines 9-12
In the third and final quatrain of ‘Sonnet 20,’ the speaker says that for “a woman” this person was created, alluding to their male gender. Nature made this person, (an example of personification) but she went farther than she intended to. This is a sexual allusionrelated biologically make organs that the speaker, a man, does not have any use for. It is “one thing to [his] purpose nothing”.
- Female
- October 9, 1995
- Poetry Analyst And Editor
The poem belongs to a sequence of Shakespeare's sonnets addressing an unidentified “fair youth”—a young man for whom the speaker of the poems expresses love and attraction. In this particular sonnet, the speaker praises the fair youth for his beauty, which encompasses both feminine and masculine qualities.
Sonnet 20: A woman’s face with nature’s own hand painted. Which steals men’s eyes and women’s souls amazeth. By adding one thing to my purpose nothing. Mine be thy love and thy love’s use their treasure. A woman’s face with nature’s own hand painted Hast thou, the master-mistress of my passion; A woman’s gentle heart, but not ...
In ‘ Sonnet 130,’ Shakespeare satirizes the tradition – stemming from Greek and Roman literature – of praising the beauty of one’s affection by comparing it to beautiful things, typically in a hyperbolic manner. For example, it was not uncommon to read love poems that compared a woman to a river or the sun.
- Female
- Poetry Analyst
3 Sonnet 116: Let me not to the marriage of true minds. 4 Sonnet 98: From you have I been absent in the spring. 5 Sonnet 29: When in disgrace with fortune and men’s eyes. 6 Sonnet 130: My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun. 7 Sonnet 104: To me, fair friend, you never can be old.
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Though most likely written in the 1590s, the poem wasn't published until 1609. Like many other sonnets from the same period, Shakespeare's poem wrestles with beauty, love, and desire. He tries to find a more authentic, realistic way to talk about these things in the sonnet, and gleefully dismisses the highly artificial poems of praise his peers were writing.
