Sonnet 20: A woman’s face with nature’s own hand painted

By William Shakespeare

 

A woman’s face with nature’s own hand painted

Hast thou, the master-mistress of my passion;

A woman’s gentle heart, but not acquainted

With shifting change as is false women’s fashion;

An eye more bright than theirs, less false in rolling,

Gilding the object whereupon it gazeth;

A man in hue, all hues in his controlling,

Which steals men’s eyes and women’s souls amazeth.

And for a woman wert thou first created,

Till nature as she wrought thee fell a-doting,

And by addition me of thee defeated

By adding one thing to my purpose nothing.

 But since she pricked thee out for women's pleasure,

 Mine be thy love and thy love’s use their treasure.

 

The present essay has the aim to advance a personal interpretation about the sonnet A Woman’s Face with Nature’s Own Hand Painted.

In order to provide an exhaustive analysis, I would like to start reviewing the two quatrains and the two tercets in order to identify their

connotative meaning. In particular, I believe that the main intention of the poet was to underline the expression’s freedom.

 

From an initial analysis, the intelligent reader can easily understand that the sonnet’s structure mirrors its content: the matter the poet

wants to discuss is included in the octaves while the possible solutions are covered in the sestets. I think the main theme of this sonnet

is the expression’s freedom as the description in the quatrain introduces a person that have a woman’s gentle heart and a male aspect.

As mentioned before, in the octave presents a possible solution to the fact that this person is inwardly a woman and outwardly a man.

 

Since the title coincide with the first line of the sonnet it is confirmed the sonnet belongs to a collection, in particular to the Shakespeare

sonnets’ collection. From the phonological level, in the first line it can be notice the alliteration of the sound “a” that recalls to greatness

and in this context I think it refers to the nature that painted the woman face; while in the fifth line is present the alliteration of the

letter “e” that remands to a peaceful atmosphere and is perfectly coherent with the content. From the point of view of the content, the

sonnet is describing a person, probably the Faith Youth, that has a woman gentle heart and he/she is honest and authentic. Therefore

the Faith Youth is very different from the false women. The description goes on comparing the Faith Youth and the false women. He

has brighter and less perfidious eyes than false women.Therefore, it can be said that in this part of the description, the poet underlines

the beauty of the Faith Youth. In the second part of the description, from line 7 to 12, the poet delineates the exterior appearance of the

Faith Youth. Also the exterior aspect of him is characterized by beauty. The man captures either men and women.

In the final lines, the poet explains that at the beginning the Faith Youth was a “common person”, but Nature fell in love with him and

removed the part the poet was interested in.

In conclusion, he draw a distinction between physical love and spiritual love and the second one is the reason why the poet fell for the

Faith Youth.