[UK] Shakespeare's "My Lover's Eyes Are Never Like the Sun" Appreciation of Love Poems
[UK] Shakespeare
My Lover's Eyes Are Never Like the Sun Like the sun;
The red coral is far better than the red of her lips:
If hair were silk, iron wire would be on her head;
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If the snow was white, her chest would be dark brown.
I have seen roses like satin, red, black and white,
But her cheeks cannot compete with this kind of rose;
Sometimes, my When a lover exhales,
it is not as intoxicating as several kinds of incense.
I quite like to hear her talk, but I know very well
The music will play a more pleasant harmony;
I watch my lover move on the ground, ——
At the same time, I admit that I did not see the goddess marching;
But, God is my witness, I think my lover is better than those
beauties who are blindly compared. The son is even more extraordinary.
(Translated by Tu An)
Sonnets 127 to 153 of Shakespeare's sonnets describe the love story between the poet and a dark-skinned girl. The 130th poem selected here expresses the poet's praise for his lover.
In Shakespeare's time, many people wrote hymns for lovers, almost forming a cliché, such as green eyes and blond hair, snow-white breasts, etc. People also regarded these as essential characteristics of a beautiful woman. Shakespeare's lover is different from this kind of beauty. She has no beautiful features such as blonde hair, white skin, and blue eyes. However, Shakespeare does not despise her because of this. On the contrary, he has his own standards of beauty. He saw an extraordinary beauty in his lover. In appearance, the lover is almost unattractive. However, in the poet's mind, his lover surpasses all the beauties that people say. He treats his lover with a realistic attitude. He is not influenced by worldly standards. He loves the person who is truly worthy of admiration in his mind.
The poem uses contrasting techniques from beginning to end to compare the beauty that ordinary people value with their lovers, from eyes, lips, chest, hair, cheeks, to smell, language and steps,** *Eight aspects, comparing layer by layer, denying layer by layer, almost comparing one's lover to nothing. The comparisons in these eight aspects are written in different ways. From the 1st to the 4th sentence, there are comparisons in four aspects, one sentence at a time, which is quick and concise. They use contrast in appearance and appearance to create a dark-skinned girl with ordinary appearance. From the 5th to the 12th sentence, there are two sentences to one, and the tone is gentler than the first four sentences. The content is to describe his lover - an ordinary woman - from the temperament. She breathed like a normal person, talked like a normal person, and walked like a normal person. There are also four aspects of comparison here. As the comparison objects, they are roses, fragrance, music, and goddesses. One layer is more transcendent than the other, and one layer is more mysterious than the other. Therefore, the first four sentences and the last eight sentences, the rhythm goes from fast to slow, and the content goes from reality to fiction. They are used to gradually lift the reader's imagination away from reality and into the air, and then let it suddenly fall to the ground again, leading to the last two sentences. The unexpected conclusion: "But, God is my witness, I think my lover is more extraordinary than those beauties who were blindly compared." At this point, the reader understands that the poet was playing a trick of overt and covert criticism. It is the shortcomings of one's lover, which are actually to praise one's lover on a higher level. She has an ordinary appearance but has an extraordinary beauty. The ironic tone of the whole poem also shows the poet's disdain for worldly concepts and his sincerity towards his lover.
So, what is it about this dark-skinned girl that the poet loves so much? What is her extraordinary beauty? The poem does not reveal it. This may be a blank that the poet intentionally left us. In other words, he leaves readers with room to use their imagination. However, since the poem has denied those superficial evaluation standards of beauty, it has naturally guided the readers' imagination. Many works at home and abroad in ancient and modern times use the method of substituting fiction for reality to express beautiful things, allowing readers to use their own imagination to construct their own ideals.