Major British Writers

Poetry Analysis

Joshua B.L. Caldwell
Period 6

The title only means that it is 130 in a group of love poems, probably to the same person. The poem has no unusual shape. It has 14 lines and is contains four stanzas; three quatrains and one couplet. The rhyme scheme is abab cdcd efef gg. The sonnet type is (of course) Shakespearean. It is in iambic pentameter and the first quatrain presented the problem, the second and third expanded upon it, and the couplet solved the problem with his saying he loved her anyway.

The speaker in this poem is William Shakespeare, he is in love with his mistress. No one is being addressed in the poem and there is no apostrophe. The poem is about how despite so many things are better than his mistress he still loves her anyway and that his love is "as rare as any she belied with false compare." The theme is that he loves her despite her imperfections. The tone loving and the words that stand out are roses, goddess, and "love as rare".

Although there are no personifications, hyperbolies, allegories, or allusions; there are alliteration, assonance, images, symbolism, metaphores, and similies. For alliteration; in line 3 it says, "If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun." For assonance; in line 1, "My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun." For allusions; in line 4, "If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head." For images; in line 6, "But no such roses see I in her cheeks." Most of the lines contain symbolism; such as in line 1, "My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun." For metaphore; in line 4, "If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head." For similes; in line 1, "My Mistress's eyes are nothing like the sun."