ENGLISH LITERATURE (CBSE/UGC NET)

Detailed explanation-1: -In Sonnet 130, the theme “Women and Femininity” is connected to the idea of appearances. This poem is all about female beauty and our expectations and stereotypes about the way women ought to look. In magazines women pretty much tend to look the same. They all fit into a very narrow definition of what is beautiful.

Detailed explanation-2: -The main idea in Sonnet 130 is to challenge those poets who use too much hyperbole when describing their loves. The use of hyperbole and cliché originated with the poetry of ancient Greece and Rome. It was a convention during the Elizabethan era – and the royal court-in both literature and art.

Detailed explanation-3: -This sonnet compares the speaker’s lover to a number of other beauties-and never in the lover’s favor. Her eyes are “nothing like the sun, ” her lips are less red than coral; compared to white snow, her breasts are dun-colored, and her hairs are like black wires on her head.

Detailed explanation-4: -Shakespeare begins his sonnets by introducing six of his most important themes-beauty, time, decay, immortality, procreation and selfishness, which are interrelated in sonnet 1 both thematically and through the use of images associated with business or commerce[3].

Detailed explanation-5: -The sonnets cover such themes as the passage of time, love, infidelity, jealousy, beauty and mortality. The first 126 are addressed to a young man; the last 28 are either addressed to, or refer to, a woman.