Since it's Valentine's Day, I figured I would start with a poem about love. There are lots of poems about love out there, but one of the things I find so totally amazing about love is that you really don't love someone because of what they do. You can objectively see their flaws but not hold those against them. In Sonnet 144, Shakespeare says just that:
| My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun; |
| Coral is far more red than her lips' red; |
| If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun; |
| If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head. |
| I have seen roses damask'd, red and white, |
| But no such roses see I in her cheeks; |
| And in some perfumes is there more delight |
| Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks. |
| 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 poem certainly sounds unusual. Shakespeare's not just talking about flaws, he's being really harsh in his analysis of his mistress, with her "wiry" hairs and "reeking" breath. The interesting thing doesn't seem to be that he's saying that he loves his mistress even though she's not perfect, but that in the way he's going about it, he's almost mocking the poetic conventions he's supposed to be following (and that he follows in many of the other sonnets). He says his mistress' eyes are "nothing like the sun" - a sharp rebuttal of a "standard" poetic compliment. Rather than simply not allow his mistress' eyes to be compared to the sun, he immediately rules out the possibility. Lines 3 and 4 then play with the poetic conventions of making one's love more absolute in a quality than something considered absolute, like "whiter than snow." Beginning, "if snow is white," he does not complete the thought with "her breast are whiter," but lets your expectations fall, describing her breasts as "dun." Shakespeare doesn't even bother to continue the momentum produced by the first half of the phrase with some dramatic (even if ugly) color - he simply picks the most colorless thing he knows.
Shakespeare also seems to play with the idea of whether any woman can live up to the ideals created in poetry. He comments on his own authority for the comparisons he makes, saying he "[has] seen roses damask'd" and therefore knows that his mistress' cheeks are nothing like them, but then admitting that he "never saw a goddess go." The difference in these lines is striking - roses are an everyday object, but the implicit comparison of a lover to a goddess is much closer to reality. While no one would ever really look for a woman whose cheeks looked like roses, one might expect there to be a real woman who moved gracefully like a goddess. By saying he never saw a goddess go, Shakespeare almost seems to be implying that no woman could really be compared to a goddess. He has seen roses and other concrete objects to compare his mistress to, but no real ideal woman. The last line also suggests this: while Shakespeare is affirming that he finds his mistress amazing despite her very ordinariness, he suggests that she is "as rare as any she belied with false compare." The line could easily mean that he thinks his mistress as special as any of the ladies with the traits he's been suggesting and rejecting, whom it would be a lie to compare her to. But the phrase "any she belied with false compare" also seems to suggest that any woman is misrepresented by such poetry. In that sense, Shakespeare seems less to be complaining about his own mistress, and more to be complaining about poetic dishonesty. While he sweetly implies that love does not depend on perfection in the poem, he also critically comments on the tropes of love poetry. And that's a good combination of sentiments for a Hallmark holiday.
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