Sonnet analysis:

SONNET XX

 

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 prick'd thee out for women's pleasure,

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

 

(William Shakespeare)

 

 

Sonnet XX, written by W. Shakespeare, is part of the collection of marriage sonnets.

It is organized into three quartrains (stanzas of four lines each) and a rhyming couplet. In fact, it displayes the typical Elizabethan structure.

According to the conventions of the Shakespearean sonnets it should take in consideration different aspects of the

same problem in every quartrain.

In the first quartrain the speaking voice is the lyrical eye, that tells about the beauty of a specific person. This person is

the fair youth, even though the poet describes someone who has feminine characteristics (woman’s face, gentle heart).

In fact, an important element is the use of the word master-mistress, that represents the ambivalence, double sides

(ambiguity) of the fair youth’s sexuality (?). In line 1 the poet emphatises the fair youth’s beauty telling nature has

painted him/her. In line 4 there is a comparison between the fair youth’s earth, that remains pure, and the other

women, that changes and is false.

In the second quartrain continues the comparison with the other women (eye more bright, less false). The poet reveals

the real nature of the fair youth telling he is a man with so much beauty that attracts both men and women.

In the third (and last) quartrain the poet tells about the attraction he feels for the fair youth: he was iniatially created to

be a woman, but Nature added one thing that had no purpose for the poet to take the fair youth away from him. There

is a personification of Nature in lines 11-12.

The sonnet ends with the rhyming couplet. The poet tells about the fair youth’s love, that will be his, unlike the carnal

love (love’s use) who will be for women’s use.

It follows the rhyme scheme of the Elizabethan sonnet: ABAB CDCD EFEF GG.

An important element of this sonnet is the presence of an extra unstressed syllable on each line, that is a feminine line.

The most relevant theme of the sonnet is the fair youth’s beauty, who has both feminine and male features.