What is the Dark Lady sonnets about?
What is the Dark Lady sonnets about?
In short, the sonnets are about a love affair between the poet and his “dark” mistress who betrays him with other men, even with a beloved friend of his, and because of his dependence the poet finally falls into a deep and melancholy madness.
What are the main themes of the sonnets?
Aging and time are common themes in Shakespearean sonnets. Shakespearean sonnet themes explore the ideas of love, aging, beauty, time, lust, practical obligations, and feelings of incompetence. These themes emerge from Shakespeare’s descriptions of the relationships between his characters.
Was the Dark Lady a man?
The Dark Lady is a woman described in Shakespeare’s sonnets (sonnets 127–152) and so called because the poems make it clear that she has black wiry hair and dark, brown, “dun” coloured skin. The distinction is commonly made in the introduction to modern editions of the sonnets.
Who is the black lady being described in the Sonnet 127?
Sonnet 127 of Shakespeare’s sonnets (1609) is the first of the Dark Lady sequence (sonnets 127–152), called so because the poems make it clear that the speaker’s mistress has black hair and eyes and dark skin.
What did the Dark Lady represent?
The description of the Dark Lady distinguishes itself from the Fair Youth sequence by being overtly sexual. Among these, Sonnet 151 has been characterised as “bawdy” and is used to illustrate the difference between the spiritual love for the Fair Youth and the sexual love for the Dark Lady.
Why then her breasts be dun?
If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun; If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head. Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks. As any she belied with false compare.
Who dedicated his sonnets to the fair youth and the Dark Lady?
Shakespeare had two major addressees for his sonnets: The “Fair Youth” – respectively the “Young Man” – and the “Dark Lady” whose identities are still a matter of speculation even today.
Was Shakespeares Dark Lady Black?
Some believe that she might be of Mediterranean descent with dark hair and dark eyes of Greece, Spain, Italy and Southern France. Other scholars have suggested, given Shakespeare’s description of her dark, dun-colored skin and black wiry hair, that the Dark Lady might have been a woman of African descent.
