1. Introduction
“Beauty, noun, a combination of qualities, such as shape, color, or form, that pleases the
aesthetic senses, especially the sight.” – The Oxford Dictionary
What is beauty? What makes us attractive? For ages people have been searching the
secret of beauty. Let’s try to describe a beautiful woman: blonde hair, green eyes, long legs
and of course a good figure. Would you agree or does your idea of a beautiful woman differ
completely? Also consider that an old saying states that beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
Beauty has always played an important role in every day life and many poems were written
about this subject, but one poet went far beyond the imaginable and created something
unforgettable: William Shakespeare.
In the following I would like to analyze two of his works, Sonnet 18 and Sonnet 130,
and compare the portrayal of beauty and how it is valued in both sonnets.
The sonnets belong to an incomparable volume of poems called “Shakespeare’s
sonnets”. They are part of 154 sonnets, which were written over several years and were first
published in 1609. The first 126 sonnets are addressed to a young and handsome man whose
identity is unknown. The main focus in these sonnets lies in marrying the young man and
having children with him in order to reproduce his beauty. The rest of the sonnets describe the
speaker’s love, a physical, erotic love, and weakness for the so-called dark lady and her
unconventional beauty.
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“Beauty, noun, a combination of qualities, such as shape, color, or form, that pleases the
aesthetic senses, especially the sight.” – The Oxford Dictionary
What is beauty? What makes us attractive? For ages people have been searching the
secret of beauty. Let’s try to describe a beautiful woman: blonde hair, green eyes, long legs
and of course a good figure. Would you agree or does your idea of a beautiful woman differ
completely? Also consider that an old saying states that beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
Beauty has always played an important role in every day life and many poems were written
about this subject, but one poet went far beyond the imaginable and created something
unforgettable: William Shakespeare.
In the following I would like to analyze two of his works, Sonnet 18 and Sonnet 130,
and compare the portrayal of beauty and how it is valued in both sonnets.
The sonnets belong to an incomparable volume of poems called “Shakespeare’s
sonnets”. They are part of 154 sonnets, which were written over several years and were first
published in 1609. The first 126 sonnets are addressed to a young and handsome man whose
identity is unknown. The main focus in these sonnets lies in marrying the young man and
having children with him in order to reproduce his beauty. The rest of the sonnets describe the
speaker’s love, a physical, erotic love, and weakness for the so-called dark lady and her
unconventional beauty.
2
