Lying With the Dark Lady

This essay comes from a British Literature class I took.

Shakespeare's “Sonnet 130” and “Sonnet 138” both address the theme of lies within the writer's relationship with the Dark Lady. They contradict each other, however, in their ultimate answer to the question of whether the truth or lie is more preferable. In “Sonnet 130,” the speaker does not falsely compare her to the aesthetic beauties of the world, but instead admires her for her true appearance. The speaker for “Sonnet 138” claims the opposite; he and his lover love each through the lies they flatter themselves with. The idea that a person can be loved for their flaws is central to both poems, making the reader consider the advantages and disadvantages of lies within their own relationships.
“Sonnet 130” features heavy use of both imagery and metaphors throughout the poem. The first quatrain uses visual imagery and negative similies to describe the imperfections of the speaker's mistress. Her eyes fail in comparison to the sun; her lips and breasts are not such pure colors as can be found in nature; and her hair is described as “black wires.” (line 4) The murky colors of her lips, breasts, and hair are visually descriptive of Shakespeare's “Dark Lady.” Her eyes add to the visual of darkness as they “are nothing like the sun.” (line 1)
The second and third quatrains also use imagery and metaphor to describe the speaker's mistress. Her cheeks are neither white nor red as any rose, and her breath is not nearly so sweet-smelling as any perfume. The description of the lady's breath is the first non-visual imagery used in the poem, and is especially effective through the choice of the word “reek,” which still has negative connotations today and would have been considered highly offensive when the poem was written. The third quatrain describes her voice as lovely, but admits that it is far less so than music. The tactile imagery of the word “treads”combined with a non-iambic rhyme scheme in line 11 convey the image of her walking.
The use of the words “goddess” in line 10 and “ground” in line 11 show her in contrast to divinity, which makes the couplet even more ironic from the phrasing of “And yet, by heaven.” (line 13) The couplet gives this sonnet its whole meaning, asserting that the speaker would rather have a woman with all these flaws out in the open than one who is falsely described as beautiful. This preaches that the values of truth and simplicity over deception can make the imperfect more beautiful.
“Sonnet 138” differs greatly in its use of poetic devices from “Sonnet 130,” preferring to use puns and word play rather than vivid imagery. The playful use of words with multiple meaning befits the poem's theme of finding happiness through lies. In the first line, “swears that she is made of truth,” can mean that the speaker's love claims to be honest in the literal sense, and that she is faithful to him sexually. The word “lies” in the next line is a pun of the same nature as “truth,” yet the wordplay makes the whole second line contradict itself, as you can not truly believe something if you know it is a lie. The second half of the first quatrain explains why he chooses to believe his love's lies. To prove that he is not “unlearned in the world's false subtleties,” the speaker chooses the word “subtleties” to rhyme with “lies,” a subtlety that looks fine when read but sounds foreign when spoken.
The fifth line uses the word “vainly” to mean wrongly, but in context with the rest of the line can mean over-proudly, and in the seventh line the speaker praises not the woman, but her “false-speaking tongue,” a metaphor for the lie she tells. Only through their lies, he says in the octave's conclusion, “is simple truth suppressed.” The next quatrain reinforces this idea stating that they both lie to each other because neither of them wants to admit the truth to themselves. The couplet uses the same pun on the word “lie” as in the sonnet's beginning, and sums up the central theme of the poem that by lying to each other about their faults, the misrepresentation of these faults is what makes them happy.