19 pages • 38 minutes read
William ShakespeareSonnet 130
Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1609A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Symbols & Motifs
How the Colors Symbolize Different Beauty Norms
The poem’s first five comparisons center on color. The speaker states, “My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun” (Line 1), so the sun symbolizes a bright color. The mistress’s eyes don’t shine brightly. Red tends to symbolize passion and love, so “[c]oral is far more red” (Line 2) than the mistress’s lips. White regularly symbolizes innocence and purity, but the mistress’s “breasts are dun” (Line 3); they’re grayish yellow or perhaps unhealthy. Black frequently symbolizes gloom or desolation, and the image of “black wires” (Line 4) growing on the woman’s head is jarring. Finally, the speaker returns to red and white, with “roses damasked” (Line 5) or smooth pinkish roses, which might symbolize soft femininity. The woman’s cheeks aren’t the color of damasked roses.
The speaker uses color to symbolize the mistress’s deviation from traditional images of adored women. He includes the sun’s color, red, white, black, and white to represent conventional ideas about feminine beauty and send the message that his mistress isn’t a standard symbol of attractiveness. Through the colors and their symbolism, the speaker makes his point that his love for his mistress is “rare” (Line 13) and not “false” (Line 14). She lacks the colors typically aligned with beauty, which suggests people shouldn’t restrict true beauty and love to a limited set of colors or attributes.
The Idea of the Human Body
A motif in “Sonnet 130” relates to the human body and the speaker’s inclination to portray the human body realistically. Unlike other poems, the speaker in Shakespeare’s sonnet challenges the habit of pairing the human body—specifically, the woman’s body—with nonhuman bodies. The speaker lets the woman’s body be and doesn’t attach it to the sun, coral, snow, roses, perfume, or music.
The speaker’s refusal to objectify the human body has many layers. The idea shows that women aren’t items or things but humans. Like humans, they’re not always perfect or pleasant. What seems negative is, in a sense, positive, because to read the sonnet as unfavorable suggests compliance with dehumanizing beauty norms. That is, the poem insults the woman if the interpretation decides fetishistic conventions are aspirational.
If the interpretation of the poem concludes that standard beauty norms are demeaning, then the poem compliments the woman since it doesn’t rely on “false compare” (Line 14) but on how the woman’s body operates in real life. From this point of view, “Sonnet 130” anticipates contemporary beauty movements that are trying to move away from filters and retouching and focus more on presenting a natural image of beauty.
The Idea of Ownership
The speaker appears enlightened due to his disavowal of fetishistic beauty norms, yet the speaker preserves some sexist conventions through the motif of ownership. The first word in “Sonnet 130” is “my”—a possessive. The mistress belongs to the speaker—she’s his lover, which links to the idea of ownership and complies with gender dynamics during the Elizabethan period, before, and beyond. Through the motif of ownership, the speaker arguably perpetuates the idea that women are property. Although the speaker seeks to show women as human, he doesn’t let go of the notion that women belong to men.
The phrase “my mistress” occurs three times in the poem. It comprises the first two words of the poem, reappears at the end of Line 8, and makes a final appearance at the start of Line 12. The repetition stresses the importance of ownership and maintains the unequal relationship between men and women. Another interpretation, however, might conclude that “rare” (Line 13) love, regardless of the genders involved, inevitably produces intense feelings that make the loved ones feel like they own one another. In this case, the motif of ownership is less about male-female relationships and more about the acute force of love.
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By William Shakespeare
