Pretty and Ugly

Shakespeare’s Sonnet 130, “My mistress’ eyes are Nothing like the Sun”, meaning is enhanced by Catherine Tate’s classroom performance by mocking the traditional conventions of love in love poetry.

Throughout the sonnet, Shakespeare mainly relies on hyperbole and imagery to describe the love he has towards his mistress. Instead of comparing, the speaker contrasts her to nature. Traditionally, poets are likely to compare their lover to nature to complement their physical appearance and personality, however by the speaker doing the opposite, he’s stating he loves his mistress more than he loves his beloved, who possibly could be his wife. The overall situation is showing infidelity. How so? The biggest hint is this poem is about a mistress. According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, there are numerous definitions, but one in particular states that a mistress is, “A woman other than his wife with whom a married man has a continuing sexual relationship.”  From what is observed through the sonnet is Shakespeare uses a lot of imagery to describe this mistress. He starts off with, “My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun.” (Shakespeare, Line 1). Just by calling her “mistress” the readers can identify that this ‘love’ poem isn’t the traditional love poem. The speaker is talking about an extramarital relationship, which in some perspectives, is considered unfaithful and absurd. He continues by stating, “eyes are nothing like the sun.” (Line 1) The sun is bright. From stating her eyes are not the sun, the speaker is indicating her eyes are not bright or shiny. So, is he claiming her eyes are dull? Isn’t this the opposite of a compliment towards a woman? It’s not the only example of imagery he provides, he continues with “Coral is far more red than her lips red;” (Line 2). For some, red lips are an attractive and beautiful feature in women. From stating, “Coral is far red than her lips-” (Line 2). He’s basically claiming her red lips are not as attractive or as vibrant as coral.  This is where hyperbole appears. The speaker becomes exaggerated when describing his mistress’ physical attributes, to make the differences more apparent between the beauty of nature and hers. The imagery gives readers a possible visual on how his mistress looks which isn’t really pleasing. He mentions, “If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun.” (Line 3). The era and place this sonnet were written in should also be considered since it will provide a deeper understanding on how these physical details are being negative. In England, precisely around the 1600’s, the whiter a woman was and the redder her lips were the more beautiful they were considered. In this case, this poem, is describing the complete opposite, it is a woman with dull eyes, light red lips, tannish breasts, and unruly black hair. Does it stop there? No. The speaker trails off to the color of her cheeks next, stating, “I have seen roses demasked, red, and white, But no such roses see I in her cheeks.” (Shakespeare, Lines 5 and 6). A rose is the traditional symbol of love and beauty, to say that there are no such roses in her cheeks- Is he calling his mistress ugly?  Is he trying to humiliate her? Compliment her? Does he even love her? He even goes on to describing her breath, mentioning, “And in some perfumes is there more delight Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.” (Lines 7 and 8). He’s even saying her breath isn’t pleasant and stinks. There is exaggeration happening with these lines since he’s stating some perfumes are better to smell than her breath, but why is he saying this? The things he says are quite horrendous, however by stating such things, the speaker is giving his mistress her place. He’s seeing her as who she is and is not describing her with common nature comparisons love poems give when describing their lovers. That’s how Shakespeare mocks traditional love poems. Though it’s ugly, the speaker is demonstrating that his mistress’ beauty is one of a kind, and something that popular attributes that most love poems use cannot describe.

How is this whole meaning enhanced by Catherine Tate’s classroom performance though? When Catherine portrayed that insolent school girl, her attitude was very hideous from the start. Though Shakespeare was more physically descriptive, not too much on behavior they can still be connected in the aspect that both the sonnet and Catherine’s character showed a type of ugliness. She uses the poem as a way to threaten her teacher. She was very aggressive and quick when she recited it enforcing that point. Why though? Why did she use the poem? She transformed the poem’s meaning by literally breaking the beauty ideals in poetry. Even though Shakespeare’s sonnet was quite ugly with its various examples of vivid contrasting imagery, surely, he didn’t want his poem to be read in such a harsh and quick manner, so by Catherine reciting the poem in such a tone and pace, it makes the ugliness stand out more within Shakespeare’s sonnet, “My mistress’ eyes are Nothing like the Sun.”

-Claudia Dominguez

Shakespeare’s Sonnet and the Classroom Performance

To really get a deeper look into this, let’s first look at the sonnet by Shakespeare, “My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun.” First, the one thing we must remember is that this will follow the Shakespearean format of three quatrains before suddenly hitting a turn, and having to rhyme couplets, GG. Next, there are a couple dominant themes, with the main ones being a male speaker expressing love or lust to a heavily idealized female subject, sexuality/sensualness, and multiple forms of love (religious, spiritual, psychological). Now, let’s look through the sonnet itself.

As we slowly look through Shakespeare’s sonnet, it’s clear that we aren’t exactly leaning into the dominant themes of love and idealization, but rather, an ironic opposite. The first three Quatrains are of heavy rhetorical/mocking themes, as he mentions how his mistress’s eyes are nothing like a sun, which is an often ‘romantically compared feature,’ nor is his mistress’s breasts dull while snow is white. This comparison lasts for the first three quatrains before the turn happens. You see, right before this ends, Shakespeare, at the ‘turn’ section of his sonnet suddenly states that all these false comparisons are silly. I believe he’s essentially stating that why compare someone with perhaps, wires? Or in most romantic stories/poems/audio/sonnet/etc, snow, rose, and so on.

Now, to answer the question, how is the meaning of this sonnet transformed by Catherine Tate’s performance? Catherine Tate begins the start by rambling on and on with her teacher, consistently making remarks about him being Scottish, not born in England, and so on. However, after careful back and forth, almost like the comparisons made in Sonnet 130’s first three Quatrains, the table is suddenly turned, and Catherine begins to recite the Sonnet quickly and accurately without a hitch. At the end, Mr.Logan mentions something about a rose by any other name that would simply smell just as sweet. While I’m not entirely insightful on this part, to me, it narrowly relates to Sonnet 130’s last line, ‘with false compare.” That line for Shakespeare means that regardless of what his Mistress is compared to, she’s still the most beautiful individual in his eyes, which I could feel relates to the part where Mr.Logan says, “A rose by any other name would smell as sweet.”

One thing of interest as well is how Catherine believed that Logan couldn’t teach English due to his heritage, which I thought could’ve correlated with how many individuals saw Shakespeare’s poetry as elitism, akin to what Catherine believes about English – a language that could only be taught by someone born in England. Perhaps, while the main structure of the sonnet relates to the skit, in the end, Shakespeare’s poem is about how even without comparisons one is still the most beautiful in his eyes, the skit is more alongside the lines of harsh contrast. – Edmund F.

Interpretation of Sonnet

Catherine Tate’s classroom performance enhanced Shakespeare’s sonnet by giving the poem, “My Mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun”, a more infuriated tone. In the video, Catherine is performing as an insolent student who conveys Shakespeare’s sonnet, with a faster pace as if giving Shakespeare’s poem a more in depth feeling towards it. When I was reading his poem, the tone that I had captured was soft and passionate, but Catherine’s tone made the sonnet as the approach to a tragic and angering tone; she recited the poem without a care. Rushing the sonnet had made the poem into what seems hateful which contradicted how Shakespeare had interpreted the poem into a loving and admirable approach as he described the features of his mistress, such as, “My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun; Coral is far more red than her lips’ red” (1-2 Shakespeare). In other words, the sonnet was meant to be an approachable and loving poem but was drawn away from it by how Catherine recited it. In addition, while watching the video the teacher, who was played by David Tennant, was having an argument with Lauren (Catherine Tate) because of her rude behavior towards him and called her dull, in which she replies “A bit like Shakespeare.” This captured my attention because this related to the tone that she used when reciting the sonnet, she read it blandly and without any interest, only reciting the sonnet without actually acknowledging the meaning. Furthermore, Catherine continued to disrupt David’s teaching until he eventually told her no more interruptions, but she continues by mocking sonnets itself or it could be that she is not only mocking sonnets but Shakespeare as well. Her response of mockery was, “Ammist I bovvered. Art thou calling my mother a pox-ridden wench? Art thou calling my father a goodly rotten apple?” Not only does she continue to mock but she also refers to David (the teacher) “My liege” which indicates him as a superior figure. I find this to be interesting because it is as if the male figure had the most power than the female figure (Catherine) in the skit. With that being said, this sonnet could have had different interpretations on how a male or female would view this piece by Shakespeare, either into a loving sonnet or an unpleasant one. 

Celeste Tejeda-Menera

Mockery within the sonnet

In the video with David Tennant and Catherine Tate, I interpreted the video’s objective to dismiss Shakespeare’s sonnet, “My mistress’s eyes are nothing like the sun,” and dismiss Shakespeare himself as a writer. At the beginning of the video, while Tennant and Tate are quarreling, Tennant says, “You’re repetitious and extremely dull,”” to which Tate bites back by saying, “A bit like Shakespeare.”” So before Tate even began reciting the sonnet, I knew that the sonnet would be recited in a different way than I had interpreted the poem to be read. When Tate recites the poem, I feel as though there is anger, a mockery, to prove a point that it doesn’t take a genius to recite a sonnet, trying to debunk Tennant’s idea that Shakespeare is a genius, unlike Tate. It was as if Tate recited the poem with one breath; she did not stop to take any breaks to take a breath, which I thought was different from Shakespeare’s sonnet. In Shakespeare’s sonnet, I took his punctuation marks as a sign to stop; for example, one line says, “My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun; Coral is far more red than her lips’ red;” (lines 1-2). So, when reading his sonnet, I pause after “sun” and “read,” which Tate does not acknowledge when she recites the sonnet. There is a lack of passion when Tate recites her version of the sonnet, and the recitation of the sonnet makes the original meaning lose its romantic aspect. I say this because I interpreted Shakespeare’s poem to say that his mistress’s eyes don’t resemble the sun, and she has all of these flaws, but he still sees the beauty within her; for instance, one line writes, “And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare” (line 13).  I also noted the gender dynamic between Shakespeare and Tate, which may have influenced how Tate recites the poem. Maybe Tate recites the poem in a way that mocks Shakespeare because of how his sonnet describes his mistress, saying she does not amount to things like the sun or smell good, but he still loves her, which can be viewed as backward.

Janayah Applon

A Voice for Those Unheard

1. How is the meaning of Shakespeare’s sonnet transformed or enhanced by Catherine Tate’s classroom performance?

In Shakespeare’s Sonnet 130, the speaker does not include his lady’s thoughts, and yet claims to “love to hear her speak” (line 9). This “mistress” plays a passive role because she cannot speak to us in a poem that is entirely from his perspective. The speaker also does not address the subject of this sonnet directly. He writes about his love, but his audience is a third party (and not her). Despite this, the speaker found a love that is incomparable to anything. He explains that his love is human yet beyond the sun, coral, snow, roses, perfumes, music, or goddesses. He ends the sonnet by saying that his “love as rare / As any she belied with false compare” (lines 13-14). Cheap clichés would not suit this lady. She cannot be compared to anything because that comparison would result in a false simile. 

In comparison, Tate’s performance of the sonnet is vocal, angry, and defiant. Tennant’s character claims that Tate’s character is “not even worthy to mention [Shakespeare’s] name”. The student proves her knowledge of Shakespeare by defying her teacher’s order to be quiet and reciting “My Mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun”. Her voice is firm and even forceful at moments. Tate speaks rapidly, takes quick breaths, and adds hand gestures throughout the poem. (Seen at “I have seen roses damasked, red and white”, “Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks”, and “I grant I never saw a goddess go; / My mistress” (lines 5, 8, 11-12)). Her performance is not just through her voice. She embodies the sonnet through her hands, head movements, eye contact, and raised eyebrows. She puts her whole body into a passionate performance. Towards the end of the sonnet, she disregards the punctuation and recites the lines without pauses, “My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground. / And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare” (lines 12-13). The student wastes no time on the last lines of the poem because she is only reciting it to prove her teacher wrong. Although Tate’s character knows the sonnet by heart, she makes pacing modifications to suit her point. If we assume the volta is between lines 12 and 13, then Tate has sped through it. Since this student dislikes Shakespeare, she does not care about this element of his sonnet. Her performance adds a layer of aggression and anger that is not present in the words alone. The student employs Shakespeare’s sonnet as a vessel for her anger towards her teacher. She uses her voice and body to transform this one-sided love confession into a bold act of defiance. In the end, Tate gives voice to an objectified woman only for Tennant’s character to objectify her. When he turns her into a doll, it is his attempt to silence her and render her powerless.

~Miki Chroust

The poem forced to be a sonnet

The insolence that is expressed in the character that Catherine Tate played is the chaos that Millay put into fourteen lines. It is the embodiment of the amorphous shape that holds its essence. The sonnet itself is chaotic, if you can even call it that. It rebels from what we stereotypically call a sonnet. There is no question to be answered, no rhythm or rhyme, and no ending couplet. There is no pattern to be seen, just pure chaos, like what she said it was going to be. It’s not like the traditional Italian one, nor is it like the modified Shakespearean one, and it’s not even like a formula of her own. It’s basically a free-write that she shaped and forced to be a sonnet, chaos in fourteen lines. This is expressed by Catherine Tate’s character because she is the typical annoying disruptive student who gives the teacher a hard time; but she knows what she’s doing. She is following the guidelines. While she may be disruptive and rude, she knows the material and there is nothing the teacher can do about it even if she doesn;t act like your typical good student; in the same way that they it doesn’t sound like a sonnet, because it has fourteen lines it essentially is one; no matter how disruptive it is.

-Paris Baker

Nothing Like the Original

Catherine Tate’s classroom performance of “My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun” completely enhances the original intention of the sonnet, specifically through the purpose behind the sonnet. Tate’s performance of the sonnet takes a new spin on the sonnet, where Shakespeare’s original intention was to describe the temptation behind the speaker’s mistress, evidently through the usage of juxtaposition in the sonnet. For instance, the speaker states that “music hath a far more pleasing sound,” yet he “love[s] to hear her speak.” (Shakespeare ll. 9-10). Tate technically makes a subtle point of this in her delivery because Tennant is unable to stop her from talking, but continues to let her speak despite, eventually, he reveals that he can in fact make her stop talking. Tate, instead of making the main purpose of the sonnet obviously, she makes it more subtle and exact, poking fun at Tennant and even Shakespeare, perhaps taking a more feminist spin on the sonnet, pushing back at male power through her ability to speak back towards Tennant.

Moreover, since sonnets are traditionally male in their speakers, Tate transforms the traditional delivery through her gender, as she delivers a sonnet that is inherently male in its details. Tate uses the sonnet as a satirical jumping board, where she mocks Tennant in his insistence in teaching Shakespeare, as her main point throughout the video is that poetry is pointless, and through her delivery, she points out how ridiculous and stupid the actual lines of the sonnet are, as her delivery, as passionate as it is, almost pokes fun at how a sonnet usually is– passionate, completely over the top, and incredibly objectifying. That is, objectifying for men to gaze upon women’s bodies in a place of power, looking down at them. Her delivery creates an air of ridicule around the sonnet, which transforms the sonnet’s purpose, as the original purpose was to express love for a women, but here, Tate uses it to mock Shakespeare and Tennant effectively.

Isaak Puth

In Your Face

As we all know, reading Shakespeare’s content is all about the all dying exaggeration for love. How the structure of the sonnet’s strictly follow the guidelines of the quatrains and the couplet. Catherine Tate’s classroom performance perfectly executes the qualities of the sonnet in acting form. The meaning of Shakespeare’s sonnet is overly enhanced by Catherine
Tate’s classroom performance through the visual acting aspect to prove that the sonnets are strict and exaggerated.

What I like to think about Shakespeare’s sonnets is that it is all quite in your face such as ‘My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the Sun‘ where it states, “If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun; / If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head” (lines 3-4). Where in these stanzas, the words are so powerful it feels like the words are quite literally hitting your face. These stanza’s are rally in your face since the tone is and intense love for one. I can see this through the repetition of the word “If”, this beginner for each sentence sets the tone of the poem form a moving and intense feeling. The main girl who argues with the English teacher performs perfectly, showing this feeling by asking the English teacher “Do you see my face?”, where she uses this question as a replica of how the sonnets are such an exaggeration to the original sayings of the poems. Also proving how strict the poems are by Tate’s performance of asking her English teacher spoke English. This shows how if the teacher doesn’t speak English he isn’t a qualified teacher, where this symbolizes over in the Shakespeare’s aspect that there are certain guidelines to be followed upon on.

I really enjoyed Catherine Tate’s take on the exaggeration and strictness on Shakespeare. The performance is overly off the top from the tones, expressions and word choice, such as the sonnets of Shakespeare. Where her facial expressions and acting were honestly a form of Shakespeare’s Sonnets.

~ Roma Ventura

Shakespearean Sonnets Taught By Dr Who, Interpreted By An Annoying English Student

Shakespearean sonnets are taught to many different students around the world, I from first hand experience know that they have been teaching us about Shakespeare’s work since middle school. Many students are not the biggest fans of Shakespeare’s work, but we all know it and I can confidently say that even if you are not a fan of literature you would be able to recognize what a Shakespearean sonnet looks like in the Elizabethan teaching of English Literature.

The poem “My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun,” sonnet 130 written by Shakespeare, we are introduced to a mistress which Shakespeare describe in an unorthodox fashion, he explains that “if snow bobwhite, why then her breast are dun,” “And in some perfumes is more delight Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.” Instead of painting his mistress in a light that depicts her beauty and that make the reader think about her in an angelic way, he does the complete opposite and writes al about her flaws. And although Shakespeare decides to do the unconventional and write about his mistress’ flaws, we interpret it as a way to say that her mistress is REAL, that she is human and not perfect like a doll or in this case the sun.

In the poem Shakespeare chooses unconventional, he chooses not to write a poem that us received as your “normal” poem talking about the beauty of a woman. We also find unconventionality in the Catherine Tates’s classroom performance. In the video, Catherine Tete plays a student who is not well behaved, and does not depict the characteristics of a model student. Catherine has her character mock the teacher and say he reminds her of “Dr Who” or saying “I don’t think you’re qualified to teach is english” because the teacher is Scottish. However when the teacher has finally had enough of Catherine he threatens to fail he, she then surprises everyone by reciting “My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun” a sonnet by William Shakespeare, as mentioned previously. She surprises even the teacher as nobody would expect this from a baldly behaved student with such a reputation, however is happened and she did it correctly, she know what a Shakespearean sonnet is by heart.

This is unconventional and I think in a way helps emphasize the unconventionality that Shakespeare goes for in his poem. Just like how it doesn’t seem normal for Shakespeare to write about loving a mistress who, according to the sonnet, is imperfect is so many harsh ways, writing about her in a way that makes her seem so awful, it doesn’t seem normal for such an awful and uncumbersome student would have the ability to recite a poem by Shakespeare. I also think that there is a better emphasis created on the sonnet by the fact that such an unorthodox student would recite such an unorthodox sonnet by heart, in my eyes this enhances the horribleness of the mistress and brings a stronger pull on the words that are written by Shakespeare.

Another thing that what was worth mentioning when comparing the video and Shakespeare’s sonnet would be the turning point, the volta, that is present in both the poem and the video. Because the poem is a Shakespearean sonnet then it is structure with 12 lines that allow for a narrative build ups and two final couplets that are a turning point in the poem. And just like in the poem, the video is structured in a very similar format with the most of the initial part of the video building a narrative of the dislike that the Catherine’s character has for reading and for Shakespeare, however in the last few lines of the videos she recite the poem and surprises everyone, bring a turning point to the video, a last clap-back and her professor is you will. The video is essentially structured as a sonnet.

Guadalupe Lemus

You Can’t Tell Me What To Do!

Shakespeare has been widely cemented as one of if not the most important poet in history, being widely known and widely discussed. All of the pieces he has written have been examined under a microscope, over analyzed, and discussed among academia for decade after decade. Because of this, there has been a sort of negative connotation of Shakespeare among younger readers who read him in the classroom setting that Shakespeare is this dry and old writer that is purposefully confusing yet their teacher cannot shut up about him. Catherine Tate’s performance of Shakespeare’s My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun (Sonnet 130) is a perfect encapsulation of this disconnect while also demonstrating the true meaning of the sonnet itself.

The sonnet starts with painting the recipient in quite a negative light, with lines like “And in some perfumes is there more delight\ Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks” (Lines 7-8). In these lines, the speaker is straight up calling the breath of the woman he is supposedly praising repulsive and disgusting, something that you would never hear normally during this era. This continues with “I love the hear her speak, yet well I know\ That music hath a far more pleasing sound” (Lines 9-10). The speaker is recognizing that when his mistress speaks, he knows that it is not as beautiful as music, but loves it anyways. Despite all of this, it is clear that the woman that the speaker is comparing all of these things to is anything but perfect. However, in the last couplet of the sonnet, this is written: “And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare\ As any she belied with false compare” (Lines 13-14). This is Shakespeare stating that the mistress is so beautiful to the speaker that he finds it unnecessary to compare her to anything else as she is incomparable. It is a great way to show the beauty in imperfection as well as a rejection of the romantic norms.

This concept is brought under a modern light during Catherine Tate’s performance of the sonnet. The context of the sonnet being written is that the snobby English teacher praises the complexity of Shakespeare while the student just scoffs at it. The teacher then tells her that she will never be as good as Shakespeare, in which the student recites the sonnet from memory in a rapid fashion. She recites it very clearly, showing a great understanding and memorization of the sonnet, while also giving it a matter-of-fact tone by not embellishing any of the lines. It is essentially the student telling the teacher that you cannot put her in a box simply because of her disposition and she can enjoy Shakespeare or choose not to without the teacher dictating it to her. It is a rejection of the more traditional interpretation of Shakespeare and instead mocks and berates while also demonstrating prowess over the subject, demonstrating the “perfection” that the imperfect student demonstrates. This pairs very well with the underlying theme of the sonnet and shows great similarities between the teacher and the poets of the romantic era.

Sky Miller