Sonnet 129

“Sonnet 130” by William Shakespeare (1609)

“Sonnet 130” comes right after “Sonnet 129” and gives a full description of the Dark Lady. This poem is helpful when reading “Sonnet 129” because it provides more context for the woman and the type of relationship Shakespeare is discussing in this section of the sonnets. This sonnet also provides another massive break from the traditional English sonnet conventions of the time by describing the poem’s subject in realistic, almost unflattering terms. The poem is comedic in a way, but it also reinforces the primacy of the speaker’s love: At the end, the speaker insists his love is truer than any idealized love described in other sonnets, because he loves his mistress for who she really is.

“Sonnet 71” by Sir Philip Sidney (1591)

This sonnet follows the traditional trope of idealizing the beloved. The speaker notes that the subject’s beauty is so great that it inspires those who look on her to virtue, and it makes others even more beautiful just by looking at her. However, the final couplet undermines this virtuous idea of beauty by recognizing that even though the rest of the poem is true, there is still the feeling of desire and lust that the speaker compares to physical hunger. The poem was written in the same era as Shakespeare’s and shares a similar theme of lust and desire, though Sidney’s poem is more appreciative of lust than Shakespeare’s.

“Desires” by Constantine P. Cavafy (1961)

Cavafy was a Greek poet from the 19th and 20th centuries whose work became famous posthumously. In this short poem, he uses the metaphor of dead bodies in a mausoleum to describe unfulfilled desires. He describes the bodies being decorated and surrounded by beautiful flowers, but shut up in the mausoleum with tears and forever encased in darkness. He then says that this is what it is like to have a desire that is not consummated because it will never experience “a night of sensual delight, or a bright morning.” This poem, like Sidney’s, takes a more positive view of lust and desire, as it laments unconsummated lust.