Yes, Shakespeare was right.

I think love is confusing. I guess it’s not confusing when I think of loving my family members or friends because that, to me, is such a simple and automatic thing. It takes a greater deal of effort, however, to love someone when you don’t understand them or don’t agree with them on some level. Shakespeare explains this principle so well, particularly in sonnets 116 and 130. All too often, the media casts a light on love that makes it seem perfect and always “dreamy” and surreal. The “chick flicks” always end happily and somehow everything falls into place as the upbeat music starts playing and the credits roll. But I don’t think love is always like that in real life. I'm sure that sometimes it is, but I also believe that the truest test of love is if it survives through disappointments, misunderstandings, failed expectations, and time. To me, there’s a difference between a “crush” and really, truly loving someone. Shakespeare explores this difference in sonnets 116 and 130, and he does an incredible job of it, too. This comparison was especially evident in sonnet 130. This sonnet makes me think of what a husband might feel towards his wife after they’ve been married for a long, long time. Initially, he probably saw her as “a summer’s day” and a “goddess” and all that, but as time went on and the “crush”-like stage wore off, he grew to love her in much deeper ways then physical attraction. Eventually, he didn’t care whether or not her cheeks were like roses or her breath like perfume, because, as stated in sonnet 116, love is an “ever-fixed mark/ That looks on tempests and is never shaken” (line 5-6). He closes sonnet 130 with two lines that exemplify the entire theme of the poem: “And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare/ As any she belied with false compare” (13-14). In other words, it’s as if he’s saying that despite the fact that his wife may no longer look like a “goddess” (or maybe never did in the first place), his love is rare because that doesn’t matter to him...He still loves her. “[M]y mistress is exceptional in that she has set new standards for TRUE beauty by a comparison that defies its standards” (footnote 4 on pg. 1214; I think that about sums it up.).