“Thou canst not see one wrinkle in my brow;
Mine eyes are gray and bright and quick in turning:
My beauty as the spring doth yearly grow,
My flesh is soft and plump, my marrow burning”
The cliché, historically and at present, goes something like this: the perfect beauty possesses huge incandescent eyes, large full lips, rosy cheeks, a small delicate nose, and a dainty neck. She's thin and shouldn't look obviously muscular or strong. Her body's contours meet a fairly precise technical specification for softness and curvature, while containing only the minimum amount of fat and flesh necessary. And although the paradigm that required beauty to be blond-haired, blue-eyed and fair-skinned has dissipated recently, there endures a fixed criterion that most women attempt to imitate.
Shakespeare’s eloquent prose paint attractive images of frailty and youthful splendor, but his works are also filled with a level of sarcasm and disgust towards the practice of superficial devotion. Beginning with Sonnet 127, Shakespeare introduces us to his Dark Lady. He departs from previous increase arguments and contemporaneous means of expression and presents an alternative appreciation of romanticized beauty. Suddenly, typical idioms such as damask cheeks, coral lips and snow-white skin, are coupled with phrases like false compare, profaned beauty, slandering creation, and art’s false borrowed face:
“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.”
This passage from Sonnet 127 is particularly significant because he not only professes his love for the Dark Lady, calling her his mistress, but he also condemns those who take on false equivalents in the name of vanity. In doing so, he simultaneously encourages women to be themselves and not try to emulate others. Shakespeare’s Dark Lady sonnets raise many questions about what defines beauty that we still struggle with today.
If modern women recognize inner beauty as more precious than a cosmetized, counterfeit image, why do we perpetuate the illusion? Though particulars may change as styles evolve, the reliance upon men’s sexual preference remains fundamental. We allow others to dictate and confirm our own self-worth based on our fluctuating appearance. And though we blame the media for perpetuating this problem, Shakespeare’s sonnets are a striking example of how multifarious and far-reaching the issue actually is. On a light note, his sonnets lead me to wonder whether Shakespeare was a pioneering feminist. However they also leave me feeling disgusted that women have made such progress, but still allow ourselves to be negated to mere objects of adoration.
