Less Than Perfect

I think this poem is, more than anything, a parody of other love poems. This would explain why Shakespeare takes pretty things such as the sun, snow, roses, perfume, etc while at the same time choosing a few of his "loved one's" physical features and saying "oh wait, you are not like this." Granted, in the end he added the cliche couplet that basically says that in spite of imperfections, his love is true, blah blah. However, when put into perspective, he is, in a way, pointing out how inferior and/or imperfect the woman that he is describing really is. It is interesting because when we think of a love poem, we don't think of the writer telling his love interest that music is more pleasing than the sound of her voice. I guess this could play into how women were always perceived as less than perfect, because that is basically what he is saying -- "here is this beautiful thing and while you are ALMOST that beautiful, you are not quite there yet."

Another interesting thing is how this poem focuses on the physical rather than the internal -- the "personality." It kind of makes me go back to Mulvey's article about women being there for visual pleasure (which was also mentioned in the article for this week). In addition to the particular attention given to the physical body, Shakespeare is also, in a sense, fragmenting the female body... just as Lavinia was fragmented in the play and how more attention was given to what she lacked rather than what she had to offer.