However, despite the fact that Shakespeare begins the sonnet with negative comments about his mistress and goes against the reader’s expectations, his conclusion is very positive and shows his real love for her. His final message is that he doesn’t care about all the things which she lacks. In his eyes she is beautiful and that’s why he loves her. This effect therefore makes this sonnet more powerful than the traditional sycophantic Elizabethan love poems as his love between him and his mistress is not as artificial and false as others may be. This sonnet also describes how normal and down to earth his mistress is, which is odd, especially during the Elizabethan and Victorian era when women were unrealistically idealized in poetry.
The ordinary beauty and humanity of his lover are important to Shakespeare in this sonnet, and he deliberately uses stereotypical love poetry metaphors against themselves. If you compare this sonnet to A Woman to Her Lover, then it is clear what elements of the conventional love sonnet Shakespeare is light-heartedly mocking. A Woman to Her Lover is an unconventional poem written by a poet whom we know nothing about other than her life span (1750-1800). Straight away, from the title, the reader immediately knows who the poem is addressed to, her partner. Each verse contains a single idea. It first starts off with a question, which is addressed to her partner, “Do you come to me to bend me to your will as conqueror to the vanquished?” She uses the device of presenting a question and then offering an answer. This question is answered five lines below the question: “no servant I will be”. Here she is saying how she does not want to be a servant to her partner meaning being forced to do anything which she does not want to do. She makes it clear that she does not want to be a passive wife “to make of me a bondslave, to bear you children, wearing out my life, in drudgery and silence, no servant will I be”. She clearly has modern opinions and strong views about life and does not want to be a traditional wife, unlike many women of her time. Moreover, the phrase “co-equal love” emphasises how she wants equality within her relationship between her partner and herself. This idea is quite revolutionary as during the 19th century, it was very uncommon for a woman to be treated the same as a man and still is today. Women had virtually no legal rights within a marriage so her request for equality is very modern.
Christina was a very unusual and forward thinking woman, which was unusual, especially during the 19th century. It was also unusual for women to voice their opinions, especially about something which many women during that time did not often talk about. She is stating her conditions for a marriage to her lover. This makes the poem seem like it is a marriage contract as she lists what she desires in her partner, especially in the last paragraph, “...that so together we may know the purity and height of passion, and of joy and sorrow, then o husband, I am yours forever”. Another reason why it is unusual is because of the fact that it is a marriage contract from a woman. This would seem extremely odd at that period of time as women were treated as meek individuals and marriage contracts would be made with men's interests at heart. She also seems certain about what she wants in life which allows the readers to create an image of a strong-headed, independent woman.
A comparison of these two poems shows some differences and similarities. Firstly, one of the most obvious differences would be the point of views in which they were written. Sonnet 130 was written from a male point of view while A Woman to Her Lover explores a woman’s view of love. However, despite the fact that the poems were written from different points of views, they both go beyond the readers’ expectations as they would expect a love poem written about Shakespeare to be mainly about how much he loved his partner, describing and exaggerating her physical features which make her look beautiful. A Woman to Her Lover also goes beyond the readers’ expectations, as the readers would not expect a woman of that time to have such bold and revolutionary ideas regarding the union of marriage.
Both poems also have different themes and atmospheres which set out the moods of the poems. Sonnet 130 is an unusual love poem as it is a parody of conventional love poetry, because of the way in which Shakespeare had light-heartedly mocked the elements of traditional love poetry. Even though the beginning of this sonnet sets out a negative atmosphere, the more the reader reads on, the more comical the sonnet becomes. That is one of the reasons why this sonnet is as successful as it is. It has a comical twist to it and interests the reader because of the way in which it was written. In A Woman to Her Lover, there is a basic atmosphere of loss which is evident throughout the poem. She
tries to portray how she is helpless to protest, and begins the poem with a relationship of the dominance of man over woman. These two atmospheres are quite different from each other as they present different moods for the poems. The moods therefore are key features of poems as without them, there would not be much feeling or meaning in the poems. Their tones are also different. The tone of Sonnet 130 is comical and entertaining while the tone of A Woman to Her Lover is poignant.
Another difference is the way in which they have been written. A Woman to Her Lover was written in free verse and not in a regular pattern of line length, verse form and rhyme. Sonnet 130, on the other hand, consists of alternate rhyming couplets. However, in A Woman to Her Lover, there are verbal patterns. Each verse contains a single idea and in the first three a question and answer are implied and given. Within the verses, too, there is pattern and repetition. For example, with verbs: ‘to bend...to make...to bear...’ (Verse 1), with nouns: ‘deed and word and wish’ (verse 2), with phrasing: ‘My skin soft only...my body supple only...’ (Verse 3), with names: ‘comrade, friend and mate' (verse 4), with alliteration: 'wakened woman’ (verse 3) and with grammatical structures: ‘if you think...’ (Verse 2/3); ‘if you ask...Then’ (verse 4).
To conclude, love and loss poems written in the 17th and 19th century have very strong effects on the readers because of the powerful messages which the poets create due to the effective language used and atmospheres created. Love and loss are two strong emotions but also very different and similar in a way. Such an emotion, which can bring about opposing feelings such as joy and devastation, is love. It is a complex emotion. Love is also an extreme emotion to feel and during the 17th and 19th century many poets expressed their feeling through poetry to share with other people.