Which is the Better Love Poem?
William Shakespeare’s Sonnet 18 and Sonnet 130 are both famous examples of his love poetry; however, the two poems are extremely different. Sonnet 18 appears to be the more traditional love poem, with its sweet words and imagery. Sonnet 130 has blunt descriptions that seem more like a slur than a love poem. In spite of its odd nature, Sonnet 130 seems like the better love poem than Sonnet 18 because of what it implies about the writer and the sonnet’s reader.
Judging the sonnets by their first lines alone, the results would be different. Sonnet 18 begins with, “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?” which is a very sweet introduction (1). The point of view is of a man speaking directly to his love. Sonnet 130 begins very differently, with the words, “My mistresses’ eyes are nothing like the sun;” a blunt admittance of her lack lf luster (1). The point of view is of a man speaking to someone else about his mistress. However, before making a judgment, the entirety of the poems must be considered.
As Sonnet 18 continues, Shakespeare declines to compare his mistress to a summer’s day or its preceding season, spring: “Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,/ And summer’s lease hath all too short a date:” (3-4). He finds the metaphor of seasons to be inappropriate because, he says to his mistress, “Thou are more lovely and more temperate:” (2). As Sonnet 130 continues, twelve of the lines of the sonnet compare his mistress as being unlike many of the earth’s beauties. Lines such as “If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.” and “And in some perfumes is there more delight/ Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.” seem like insults (4, 7-8). It still appears at this point that Sonnet 18 is a far more romantic love poem than Sonnet 130.
However, the last few lines of each sonnet are more revealing. In the last five lines of Sonnet 18, Shakespeare makes the claim that “thy eternal summer shall not fade” because he has written this poem to immortalize her (9). “So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,/ So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.” he writes (13-14). Sonnet 130 follows its 12 lines of apparently depreciating descriptions with the words, “And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare/ As any she belied with false compare.” (13-14). In Sonnet 18, it is apparent that Shakespeare is aware of his fame and ability as a poet; he appears to be complementing himself on his ability to immortalize her more than he is actually praising her. In contrast, in Sonnet 130, he leaves his ego out of his conclusion about his love for his mistress. A “rare” love is very special, and the final line dispenses with the notion that fancy, overwrought metaphors are necessary for a true love poem and in fact would trivialize them.
Additionally, considering the order in which the poems were written, Shakespeare has already discarded the idea of comparing his mistress to a summer’s day in Sonnet 18. This earlier poem admits the futility of such a comparison. By the time he wrote Sonnet 130, he simply opens with the idea that his mistress’s eyes are “nothing like the sun;” implying he is not going to toy with or insult her by offering overblown metaphor.
Overall, while the words in Sonnet 18 seem sweeter, the poem is more about Shakespeare’s abilities than it is about the woman. Sonnet 130 may offer blunt descriptions, but Shakespeare makes it clear that a woman such as his needs no sweet and false words. To offer such would be the real insult. Sonnet 130 is not ego driven, but about a genuine love that surpasses the value of either conventional views of beauty or even the power of Shakespeare’s own words, which makes it far sweeter in the end.
