Tone In William Shakespeare's Sonnet 130

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A wise man once said, “Have no fear of perfection - you’ll never reach it.” Perfection, then, cannot be attained by human beings. Despite its impossibility, many individuals continue to hold standards for perfection in the people whom they love. Throughout the ages, the standard for perfection has often been articulated through art, especially poetry. Women in particular have been expected to be perfect; they have often been described as having stars in their eyes, lips that look like art, and cheeks as red as roses. Despite the heavy presence of this universal standard for perfection, some individuals recognize the impossibility of such a standard. Throughout “Sonnet 130,” Shakespeare employs cliché comparisons in order to mock traditional Petrarchan love sonnets. Shakespeare’s mocking tone ultimately serves to demonstrate that a person …show more content…
Throughout much of the poem, the speaker repeats soft “s” sounds, “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” (9-12). The repetition of the soft “s” sound creates a very uniform, polished sound. The smooth sounds that the speaker employs are reminiscent of the polished, perfect woman who so often are described in poetry - particularly sonnets. The speaker’s words, however, do not describe a polished, perfect woman. Instead, the speaker describes a woman whose eyes “are nothing like the sun,” a woman with “black wires” growing on her head, a woman who simply is not a goddess. The soft “s” sounds that the speaker employs throughout the sonnet, then, are in stark contrast to the meaning of the words themselves. Though soft “s” sounds are often used when expressing a quiet admiration for an individual, the speaker in “Sonnet 130” spends the large majority of the
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