Sonnet 20

   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 sonnet hasn’t any specific title, but it has just a number near to the noun ”sonnet”, that is 18: it means that this poem belongs to a collection of poems, called marriage sonnets; a part of this collection is dedicated to the Fair Young and the other part is dedicated to the Dark Lady Sonnet, that was the parody of the medieval angel woman.

All this collection follows the Elizabethian model: the sonnets that belongs to this model are organized into three quatrains and a Iambic pentameter at the end, with alternating rhyme.

In the first stanza the speaking voice describes the Fair Young using telling his face was made by nature following the women face’s line. Then he address his self to his lover using Old English, indeed he asks to YOU(who is the poem’s addressed) using the terms ”Hast thou” (that means have you) and Shakespeare speaks to the Fair Young without using a genre because sure enough he talks to YOU using the words ”master- mistress” that mean “boss” oriented to a man and to a woman.

Then the speaking voices describes his lover better than women, because he says that the Faith Young’s heart is more gentle than woman’s, moreover, he doesn’t change idea often as women.

In the second stanza the speaking voice describes his lover saying his eyes are brighter that women’s and he says that he has all the colors in him to make the others fade and everyone is looking for him, men and women.

In the third stanza the speaking voice says the Fair Young has been created by nature (that Shakespeare personalized as a woman), originally she created him as a woman but nature, that fall in love with him so he decided to make he as a man, adding something that woman don’t have.

In the iambic pentameter, the poet says that the Fair Young is created for women’s pleasure but to love the speaking voice.