Now I am going to make the denotative analysis of Shakespeare’s Sonnet CXXX.

The Sonnet is about a woman, “My Mistress”. The narrator praises the woman, the real lady’s beauty.

The narrator want to criticize the idealising tendency of most Elizabethan love poetry to compare the beloved with the glories of nature, inspired by Platonic notions beauty. He describes the lady with some metaphor.

Exercise 1

The sonnet is dedicated to the Dark Lady.

Exercise 2

a) There aren’t idealised aspects. The poet’s Lady doesn’t refers to Platonic notion.

b) Idealised ladies must have tHe physical traits like the opposite of the Dark Lady.

c) My Mistress, her lips, But no such Roses see I in her cheecks, I love to hear her speak, yet well I know and I think my love as rare.

d) It is different from courtly poetry because it describes a real woman.

Exercise 3