Dark Beauties in Shakespeare's Sonnets and Sidney's "Astrophil and Stella" new meaning in the era of exploration under the leadership of the sonnetaries Sidney and Shakespeare. “Alison’s” brown hair no longer only served to distinguish her from the pack; the features of the new "Dark Lady" became more pronounced and tainted, and her eroticized associations with the strangeness of the New World became more explicit through conceits of colonization. However, the evolving dichotomy between fairness and darkness was not as revolutionary; in fact, Sidney and Shakespeare extolled the virtues of fairness with the same degree of passion as their predecessors, albeit in a masked form. To counter the outer darkness of their mistresses, poets find that an inner lightness that radiates beyond the funereal veil of raven-haired or jet-eyed hair or eyes is only acceptable if there is a innate luminosity that illuminates the sensuality of the superficial. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get an original essay Most poems addressing the light/dark antithesis choose at some point to make an overt statement that embraces or undermines the dichotomy and lays the groundwork for the rest of the poem. Dichotomous lines are generally not as simple as they suggest. “I Can Love Both Blonde and Brown,” from John Donne’s “The Indifferent,” seems to blur the line between colors, but by revealing the graceful serenity of his desire, Donne implicitly reinforces aesthetic inferiority brown. Shakespeare parodies archaic contradictions, which he recognizes in Sonnet 127: "In old age, black was not considered beautiful" (1). In Sonnet 130, he mocks the blazon which has long relied on parallels between the poet's object of affection and the beauty or brilliance of nature: "My mistress's eyes are nothing like the sun ; the coral is much redder than her lips. red;/ If snow is white, why then are her breasts brown;/ If hair is wire, black wire grows on her head,/ I have seen damask roses, red and white,/ But I do not see no such roses on her cheeks. (1-6). The range of sky, sea, earth, garden environments illustrates the variety of sources to which a poet can turn for analogies of fairness, and the "if, then" comparison structure, often punctuated in the middle of a line with a comma, physically divides the sonnet into a set of textual oppositions that expose the facile nature of the light/dark dichotomy. Kim Hall, in "Things of Darkness: Economies of Race and Gender in Early Modern England", describes the coat of arms as a means of reinforcing male superiority: "The Sonnetes established their power over female matter and their poetic prowess by relying on the power of dismemberment. of the coat of arms". Shakespeare's shameless manipulation of dismemberment subverts the struggle for power, as he is still captivated by the irregular beauty of his mistress. This may ridicule the dichotomy, but it does little to subvert it; Shakespeare admits that his darkness is as visually unappealing as "the breath that stinks that of my mistress" (8) Shakespeare endorses the dichotomy of Sonnet 147, applying his friend's immorality to the tried-and-true analogies of hell and night: " For I have sworn you fair and found you bright, / Who are black as hell, as dark as night” (13-14). his friend describes noonly his trust, but also that betrayal reveals the blasphemy of darkness. Sidney, in his cycle of sonnets "Astrophil and Stella", also uses the division between day and night, but modifies Shakespeare's conception. In Sonnet 89, Petrarch's altered arrangement acts as the perfect rhyme scheme to confuse the dichotomy. Ending each verse with "night" or "day", the "abba abba" pattern of the first two quatrains captures the cyclical demarcations between darkness and light. The final sestet, however, alternates the rhyme scheme with "ababab" and merges the two. For Astrophil, Stella's absence has made day and night indistinguishable, one seeping into the other: "the dullest night / With the darkest shadow overcomes my day" (1 -2). The zeugma in “Every day seems long and longs for a prolonged night” asserts the connection between Astrophil's bored daytime desires and “The night, as dull, [which] courts the approach of the day” (5-6). The conflation becomes most evident in the sestet, in which one side has taken on and amplified the unattractive qualities of the other: "(While no night is darker than my day,/Nor no day is less calm than my night)" (10-11). The dichotomy merges, despite the unappealing nature of its metamorphosis: “With such a bad mixture of my night and my day / That, living thus in the blackest winter night, / I feel the flames of the day of 'hottest summer' (12-14). The “blackest winter night” is still doomed, but Sidney confuses the traditional dichotomy in his unflattering depiction of bright summer days. Sidney returns to his dissolution of the night/day dichotomy in Sonnet 91: “You just, my Sun, thus invaded/With the absence 'Veil, I live in the night of sorrow' (4-5). Stella's radiant, sun-like presence reiterates the traditional relationship between women's beauty and nature that Shakespeare ridiculed in Sonnet 130. Shakespeare may actually have been wallowing in a bit of self-parody with his anti-blame, as he often used the sun to illuminate the beauty of his male friend. In Sonnet 18, he draws a direct connection between the radiance of the sun and the constant whiteness of his subject's skin: "Sometimes the eye of heaven shines too hot/And often his golden complexion darkens/And every fair beauty sometimes declines” (5 -6). As in Sonnet 15, in which time transforms the "day of youth into defiled night" (12), darkness takes on a polluted connotation, Sonnet 20 highlights the purity of lightness and the restraint of male friend in opposition to the wanton passions of women: “An eye brighter than theirs, less false when riding? / A man of all hues in his control” (5, 7). Shakespeare also probes the false surface of cosmetic beauty in Sonnet 127. He laments that beautiful beauty is now "slandered with bastard shame," once again condemning the illegitimate sexuality of darkness (4). Makeup, which usurps “the power of nature, / adorning the filthy with the false face borrowed from art”, commits a sacrilege against natural beauty: “Sweet beauty has no name, no sanctuary, / But she is profaned, otherwise she lives in disgrace” (5-8). The Lost Piety of Beautiful Beauty is a play on words; “Shame” means shame, detachment from God’s good graces, and lack of aesthetic grace. Keep in mind: this is just a sample. Get a personalized article from our expert writers now. Get a Custom Essay Yet Shakespeare cannot deny a certain psychological attraction. to this sinful model which upsets the righteous archetype. In Sonnet 144, he delves into the light and dark sides of the spiritual psyche, transforming his male friend, "a.

Essay / Dark Beauties in Shakespeare's Sonnets and Sidney's "Astrophil and Stella" new meaning in the era of exploration under the leadership of the sonnetaries Sidney and Shakespeare. “Alison’s” brown hair no longer only served to distinguish her from the pack; the features of the new "Dark Lady" became more pronounced and tainted, and her eroticized associations with the strangeness of the New World became more explicit through conceits of colonization. However, the evolving dichotomy between fairness and darkness was not as revolutionary; in fact, Sidney and Shakespeare extolled the virtues of fairness with the same degree of passion as their predecessors, albeit in a masked form. To counter the outer darkness of their mistresses, poets find that an inner lightness that radiates beyond the funereal veil of raven-haired or jet-eyed hair or eyes is only acceptable if there is a innate luminosity that illuminates the sensuality of the superficial. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get an original essay Most poems addressing the light/dark antithesis choose at some point to make an overt statement that embraces or undermines the dichotomy and lays the groundwork for the rest of the poem. Dichotomous lines are generally not as simple as they suggest. “I Can Love Both Blonde and Brown,” from John Donne’s “The Indifferent,” seems to blur the line between colors, but by revealing the graceful serenity of his desire, Donne implicitly reinforces aesthetic inferiority brown. Shakespeare parodies archaic contradictions, which he recognizes in Sonnet 127: "In old age, black was not considered beautiful" (1). In Sonnet 130, he mocks the blazon which has long relied on parallels between the poet's object of affection and the beauty or brilliance of nature: "My mistress's eyes are nothing like the sun ; the coral is much redder than her lips. red;/ If snow is white, why then are her breasts brown;/ If hair is wire, black wire grows on her head,/ I have seen damask roses, red and white,/ But I do not see no such roses on her cheeks. (1-6). The range of sky, sea, earth, garden environments illustrates the variety of sources to which a poet can turn for analogies of fairness, and the "if, then" comparison structure, often punctuated in the middle of a line with a comma, physically divides the sonnet into a set of textual oppositions that expose the facile nature of the light/dark dichotomy. Kim Hall, in "Things of Darkness: Economies of Race and Gender in Early Modern England", describes the coat of arms as a means of reinforcing male superiority: "The Sonnetes established their power over female matter and their poetic prowess by relying on the power of dismemberment. of the coat of arms". Shakespeare's shameless manipulation of dismemberment subverts the struggle for power, as he is still captivated by the irregular beauty of his mistress. This may ridicule the dichotomy, but it does little to subvert it; Shakespeare admits that his darkness is as visually unappealing as "the breath that stinks that of my mistress" (8) Shakespeare endorses the dichotomy of Sonnet 147, applying his friend's immorality to the tried-and-true analogies of hell and night: " For I have sworn you fair and found you bright, / Who are black as hell, as dark as night” (13-14). his friend describes noonly his trust, but also that betrayal reveals the blasphemy of darkness. Sidney, in his cycle of sonnets "Astrophil and Stella", also uses the division between day and night, but modifies Shakespeare's conception. In Sonnet 89, Petrarch's altered arrangement acts as the perfect rhyme scheme to confuse the dichotomy. Ending each verse with "night" or "day", the "abba abba" pattern of the first two quatrains captures the cyclical demarcations between darkness and light. The final sestet, however, alternates the rhyme scheme with "ababab" and merges the two. For Astrophil, Stella's absence has made day and night indistinguishable, one seeping into the other: "the dullest night / With the darkest shadow overcomes my day" (1 -2). The zeugma in “Every day seems long and longs for a prolonged night” asserts the connection between Astrophil's bored daytime desires and “The night, as dull, [which] courts the approach of the day” (5-6). The conflation becomes most evident in the sestet, in which one side has taken on and amplified the unattractive qualities of the other: "(While no night is darker than my day,/Nor no day is less calm than my night)" (10-11). The dichotomy merges, despite the unappealing nature of its metamorphosis: “With such a bad mixture of my night and my day / That, living thus in the blackest winter night, / I feel the flames of the day of 'hottest summer' (12-14). The “blackest winter night” is still doomed, but Sidney confuses the traditional dichotomy in his unflattering depiction of bright summer days. Sidney returns to his dissolution of the night/day dichotomy in Sonnet 91: “You just, my Sun, thus invaded/With the absence 'Veil, I live in the night of sorrow' (4-5). Stella's radiant, sun-like presence reiterates the traditional relationship between women's beauty and nature that Shakespeare ridiculed in Sonnet 130. Shakespeare may actually have been wallowing in a bit of self-parody with his anti-blame, as he often used the sun to illuminate the beauty of his male friend. In Sonnet 18, he draws a direct connection between the radiance of the sun and the constant whiteness of his subject's skin: "Sometimes the eye of heaven shines too hot/And often his golden complexion darkens/And every fair beauty sometimes declines” (5 -6). As in Sonnet 15, in which time transforms the "day of youth into defiled night" (12), darkness takes on a polluted connotation, Sonnet 20 highlights the purity of lightness and the restraint of male friend in opposition to the wanton passions of women: “An eye brighter than theirs, less false when riding? / A man of all hues in his control” (5, 7). Shakespeare also probes the false surface of cosmetic beauty in Sonnet 127. He laments that beautiful beauty is now "slandered with bastard shame," once again condemning the illegitimate sexuality of darkness (4). Makeup, which usurps “the power of nature, / adorning the filthy with the false face borrowed from art”, commits a sacrilege against natural beauty: “Sweet beauty has no name, no sanctuary, / But she is profaned, otherwise she lives in disgrace” (5-8). The Lost Piety of Beautiful Beauty is a play on words; “Shame” means shame, detachment from God’s good graces, and lack of aesthetic grace. Keep in mind: this is just a sample. Get a personalized article from our expert writers now. Get a Custom Essay Yet Shakespeare cannot deny a certain psychological attraction. to this sinful model which upsets the righteous archetype. In Sonnet 144, he delves into the light and dark sides of the spiritual psyche, transforming his male friend, "a.

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