Shakespeare's Sonnets

William Shakespeare is widely known for his simultaneous use of ambiguity and precision in his works. His plays on words go beyond common convention and force the reader to search for further meaning. Shakespeare’s flair expressed in his works engage his readers, urging them to solve his puzzle and the story he is trying to tell. His emotions and feelings of love constantly develop and shift illuminating different literary characteristics and qualities immersed inside each sonnet. Sonnet 130 is a prime example of one that compares the speaker’s lover to many other beauties—yet these comparisons are never in the lover’s favor.
This particular sonnet plays an elaborate joke on conventional love poetry written in Shakespeare’s time and is told so well, that the joke remains funny when read today. Most sonnet sequences from Elizabethan England modeled themselves after Petrarch’s sonnets. Petrarch commonly used elements of nature to describe the greatness of his mistres...