Another Interpretation of Sonnet 130

One of my friends just showed this to me

The first 5 minutes or so is dialog setting up a hilarious version of “My Mistress’s Eyes are Nothing Like the Sun”, aka, Sonnet 130. This show, says my friend, is similar to the USA’s SNL. There are two running in-jokes in this short which I needed explained to me.

1. The English teacher is played by the current Dr Who.
2. Catherine Tate (the annoying blond) is famous for her blow-off phrase “Am I bovvered?”, ie, “aaaaaand, your point is?”.

Anyhoo, enjoy!

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Geeky Guerrilla Poetry

This sonnet hangs at the bottom of the Wean Hall staircase. For a little background, Wean Hall is where most computer sciences classes are being taught until the Gates Center is completed. The Gates Center is being funded by Bill Gates, the founder of Microsoft. When considering how to apply to be the Posner Intern I had to consider who might be interested in watching sonnets on YouTube. This brings up  the larger issue, of who might be interested in sonnets?

Well, this poem, posted for at least two semesters, reassured me that there are some people who still find this form meaningful and even useful for a political protest. Just a teaser, the first line reads:

“My office lights are nothing like the sun”

Check out this post for the original Sonnet 130.

Sonnet at the bottom of the staircase in Wean Hall

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Sonnet 130

This is one of my favorite Sonnets. I love when Shakespeare writes about love which endures, and perhaps even grows with, age. I love old people love.

I saw this theme in the production of Anthony and Cleopatra I saw at the Ashland Shakespeare Festival where the two great lovers are in their middle age and still passionate.

I see it in my grandmother’s series, Old Lovers. Here she drew old couples together, portraying their lines and their touching connections vividly.

It is easy to write passionate stories about young and beautiful people–but only the truly talented can make reality romantic.

SONNET 130
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 damask’d, 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.

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Four Sonnets Chosen!

Here are their texts–some analysis tomorrow! These were the easiest to choose because I feel they are some of the most well known of Master Shakespeare’s sonnets and part of my plan for p4 (the Posner Poetry and Prose Project) is to include sonnets which are familiar and comfortable to a wide audience. Anyway, I plan to devote one post to each sonnet on my list and explain what I loved about it and perhaps give some relevant background if I have any. Enjoy the texts for now!

SONNET 18
Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer’s lease hath all too short a date:
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimm’d;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance or nature’s changing course untrimm’d;
But thy eternal summer shall not fade
Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest;
Nor shall Death brag thou wander’st in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou growest:
So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
So long lives this and this gives life to thee.
Had eyes to wonder, but lack tongues to praise.

SONNET 116
Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O no! it is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth’s unknown, although his height be taken.
Love’s not Time’s fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle’s compass come:
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.

SONNET 106
When in the chronicle of wasted time
I see descriptions of the fairest wights,
And beauty making beautiful old rhyme
In praise of ladies dead and lovely knights,
Then, in the blazon of sweet beauty’s best,
Of hand, of foot, of lip, of eye, of brow,
I see their antique pen would have express’d
Even such a beauty as you master now.
So all their praises are but prophecies
Of this our time, all you prefiguring;
And, for they look’d but with divining eyes,
They had not skill enough your worth to sing:
For we, which now behold these present days,

SONNET 130
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 damask’d, 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.

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