Point of View

The point of view in this poem, as in most sonnets, is a fairly close first-person present perspective. That means that the speaker uses first-person pronouns, like “I,” and “me,” talking from a particular perspective, and that they speak as though the events of the poem are happening as we are being told about them, rather than taking place in the past or in the future.

However, there is also a relatively rare facet of this point of view operative in the poem. Most sonnets move between first and second person, just as spoken dialogue does — talking from the speaker’s perspective, but also directly addressing the subject. The sonnet thus becomes an intimate conversation between the speaker and the subject, usually their beloved.

"Sonnet 130," by contrast, contains no direct address at all — the word “you” does not appear in the poem even once. The...