a_t_rain | Days 29 & 30

Two for the price of one, today:

Day 29: Your favorite sonnet

Um. I have to admit that I have never been all that filled with sonnet-tude. I shall have to go with #130, "My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun," since it's fun to teach (the moment when students figure out that it's not quite the putdown it seems is always nice), and it always reminds me of my beloved Much Ado.

Day 30: Your favorite single line

"Stones have been known to move and trees to speak" (Macbeth, III. iv. 123).

There's something awesomely creepy about this line -- I think it's the combo of the long, low vowel sounds and the ponderous monosyllables, which make it drag out sloooowly. It's the moment when Macbeth finally realizes there's no covering up or going back after a murder, and just before he decides he may as well wade up to his boots in blood. (And there's a nice bit of sorta-foreshadowing: in fact, it's the trees that are going to move.)

Day #1: Your favorite play
Day #2: Your favorite character
Day #3: Your favorite hero
Day #4: Your favorite heroine
Day #5: Your favorite villain
Day #6: Your favorite villainess
Day #7: Your favorite clown
Day #8: Your favorite comedy
Day #9: Your favorite tragedy
Day #10: Your favorite history
Day #11: Your least favorite play
Day #12: Your favorite scene
Day #13: Your favorite romantic scene
Day #14: Your favorite fight scene
Day #15: The first play you read
Day #16: Your first play you saw
Day #17: Your favorite speech
Day #18: Your favorite dialogue
Day #19: Your favorite movie version of a play
Day #20: Your favorite movie adaptation of a play
Day #21: An overrated play
Day #22: An underrated play
Day #23: A role you've never played but would love to play
Day #24: An actor or actress you would love to see in a particular role
Day #25: Sooner or later, everyone has to choose: Hal or Falstaff?
Day #26: Your favorite couple
Day #27: Your favorite couplet
Day #28: Your favorite joke
Day #29: Your favorite sonnet
Day #30: Your favorite single line

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

because I remember hearing someone say it and it sounded lovely, then reading and thinking that person was insulting whoever he was telling the poem to.

so what exactly does the poem mean?

I get that it's a down to earth sort of poem, none of that "hair golden like the sun, lips like rose,etc" hyper embellishment of god-like beauty they used to describe pretty women back then.

this line is the one that gets me the most confused about the intent of the poem:

"And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare

As any she belied with false compare. "

but does the guy in the poem loves the girl (his mistress) or not?

By the way, I been looking over your lj with this whole 30 days of Shakespeare and it been quite interesting to read.

Well, it helps to know something about the conventions of the sonnet, and of Elizabethan love poetry in general. Here (http://www.luminarium.org/renlit/stella9.htm) is a more typical example. There's a whole vocabulary of comparisons that are meant to describe the ideal girl -- hair like gold, voice like music, complexion like marble (or roses), etc., etc., etc. By the time Sonnet 130 is written, it's so familiar that it's cliched.

So, initially, the poet seems to be describing the anti-ideal -- a girl who fits none of those conventional metaphors and similes. And then the twist comes in those last two lines you just quoted: the problem isn't with the girl, it's with the whole vocabulary of poetry -- all the other poets are lying, because no woman lives up to all that "false compare." ("Any she" = any woman.)

so it's a love poem or an anti-love poem?

Both :)

so does he love the mistress or not?
*last question i promise*

Oooh, #130 is my favourite, too.

Days 29 & 30

oh please do tell what it means...

Re: oh please do tell what it means...

Re: oh please do tell what it means...

Re: oh please do tell what it means...

Re: oh please do tell what it means...

no subject