I feel in this poem Shakespeare is trying to challenge convention on sonnet poems. Common sonnet poems will talk about love or their lover and will give many false comparisons of their beauty. In this sonnet Shakespeare talks about his lover but not in a false comparison. For the first twelve lines Shakespeare compares his lover but in a negative way.
‘My mistres eyes are nothing like the sunne,
Curral is farre more red, than her lips red,’
This is the first two lines of the poem, as you can see he doesn’t give much positive imagery of his mistress. Shakespeare uses the technique simile in a negative way.
‘My mistess eyes are nothing like the sunne’
By doing this Shakespeare is building up an image of his mistress but in a negative way.
Throughout the first twelve lines he uses a lot of physical imagery, talking about her physical features but still comparing them to something that is better than her features.
‘If haires be wires, black wires grow on her head:’
During the ‘Golden Age’ beauty was seen as a pure white women with bright coloured hair, but in this sonnet Shakespeare is describing a dark haired women with dark skin. This again shows that Shakespeare is challenging convention by writing a poem about a dark haired woman where it is common to be writing about a pure white woman.
The last two finishing lines of the poem it then shows the reader that even though he is comparing his mistress in a negative way his love is still rare.
‘And yet by heaven I thinke my love as rare,
As any she beli’d wuth false compare.’
These are the last two finishing lines of the sonnet, which changes the overall image of the poem.
Throughout the poem Shakespeare has talked about his mistress negative but in this couplet he says that he feels his love is still rare because he has not made a sonnet on a false compare.
What I feel Shakespeare is trying to say in these two lines are that in other sonnets and love poems written by other poets they talk about their mistress and compare them to something that they are not.
‘I love to heare her speake, yet well I know,
That musicke hath forre more pleasing sound:’
Here all Shakespeare is doing is writing the truth, he says that he loves to hear his mistress speak but a ‘musickle’ is still more pleasing which for most people would be true.
This again shows that Shakespeare is challenging convention of sonnet poems.
Shakespeare also makes the couplet at the end of the poem have a bigger impact from the rhyme scheme. Through the poem Shakespeare gives a rhyme scheme of
A B A B C D C D E F E F G G
The last two lines of the sonnet rhymes together this then makes the couplet have a bigger meaning and making it rhyme gives it a bigger impact to the reader.
Overall I feel this poem is very good, as I feel Shakespeare has changed the rhythm of sonnets. Shakespeare has kept his sonnet realistic but being honest. Shakespeare has gave a message to his audience by saying that his love is just as rare as any women described with false comparisons.