Question

Which statement best explains the two possible interpretations of the sonnet? The three quatrains satirize common poetic comparisons of one’s beloved to beautiful things, suggesting that the speaker’s feelings are not strong. However, the sudden reversal in tone in the final couplet surprises and moves through its sincerity and depth of feeling, suggesting strong emotions. The speaker ridicules his mistress through his negative comparisons of her to idealized objects in the first 12 lines, which implies that he has lost interest in her. In the final couplet, though, he humorously reverses his tone and exaggerates her charms, from which readers can infer that he is being playful rather than hurtful. Some readers believe that the speaker uses satire to ridicule his mistress. Others find that his tone remains affectionate even while he speaks of her hair being "black wires," her breath reeking, or her feet mundanely treading the ground. The humorous tone in the first two quatrains show that the speaker does not take love seriously. However, in the third quatrain, he speaks of loving his mistress’s voice and that she moves as he imagines a goddess would; this shows that he is serious about love after all.

Answer 1

A

Step-by-step explanation:

Answer 2

I believe the best answer to be the first option:

The three quatrains satirize common poetic comparisons of one’s beloved to beautiful things, suggesting that the speaker’s feelings are not strong. However, the sudden reversal in tone in the final couplet surprises and moves through its sincerity and depth of feeling, suggesting strong emotions.

Step-by-step explanation:

In his Sonnet 130, Shakespeare uses metaphor to compare his loved one to beautiful natural things. However, he does so only to conclude that the woman he loves is not better than any of those things. Her hair is like black wires, her color is an unbecoming dun, her breath smells bad, her cheeks do not have any color. Still, he loves her. He does not idolize her in any way. He sees her as the human being she is, and his love is not less valuable because of that.

Shakespeare's intention is to mock the poetry that was so in vogue back at his time. In Elizabethan England, poets often used the Petrarch form when writing about love. They would compare their lovely ladies to goddesses and natural beauties, always claiming their women were far more beautiful than any of those things. It's as if their love made them blind to their flaws. Shakespeare skillfully satirizes such custom.