From these slides, u will have ideas about who the Dark Lady was, whose description we find in the sonnets of Shakespeare. I also gave specific lines about her along with the name of the suspects as there is no clear name about Dark Lady with pictures. Hope this will help!!!

1. WELCOME
Takwa Siddika
ID: 11219

3. Who Is This Dark Lady?

5. 1. Mary Fitton- a maid of queen Elizabeth's court
2. Anne Hathaway- girlfriend/wife
3. Jane Davenant- wife of the owner of the Crown Inn
4. Emilia Lanier-mistress of one of Shakespeare's patrons(poet)
5. Lucy Morgan- a black woman (prostitute)
6. Marie Mountjoy- Shakespeare's landlady
7. Queen Elizabeth I - Queen of England (Shakespeare has royal bloodlines)

6. Dark Lady's adjectives:
1. Literal (as in dark features) 2. Figurative(as in a dark personality)
-Dark hair -Dark nature
-Dark skin -Prostitute of African descent.
-Eyes are raven black -Married woman
-Lips are unattractive -Engages in adulterous relationships
-Breath is unpleasant -Tragic, doomed figure
-Cheeks are no red -Evil and wicked
-Unattractive figure -Lacks honesty & morality

7. Dark Lady in the sonnets:
Sonnets 127–152
Poet is sexually frustrated “Be anchored in the bay
where all men ride" (sonnet 137).
 Line 9 of sonnet 127: “Therefore my mistress’ eyes are raven
black”
*Black Dark, Unholy, Evil
*Raven most prophetical, a bird of ill omen, brings
death, infection, bad luck.
 Her behave makes her dark “tyrannous, so as thou
art” (sonnet 131)

8. Black Lady looks at the poet with pity.
His addiction in his Dark Lady (Sonnets127-152)
• And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare
As any she belied with false compare(sonnet 130)
• If thy unworthiness raised love in me,
More worthy I to be beloved of thee (sonnet 150)
The Dark Lady object of his obsession
In his own eyes she were lovely and lovable
(Sonnet 137):
Thou blind fool Love, what dost thou to mine eyes,
That they behold and see not what they see?
They know what beauty is, see where it lies,
Yet what the best is, take the worst to be.

9. Shakespeare is enslaved by her
 He is like an addict
(Sonnet 149):
What merit do I in myself respect
That is so proud thy service to despise,
When all my best doth worship thy defect,
Commanded by the motion of thine eyes?
But, love, hate on, for now I know thy mind;
Those that can see thou lov’st, and I am blind.

10. He loves her with all her faults, that he
loves all her imperfection
Shakespeare is very honest to the lady he
dedicates these sonnets to
“Yet so they mourn, becoming of their woe,
That every tongue says beauty should look
so.”
These two lines mirror Shakespeare’s true
love toward her as he says that blackness
is beauty.
What About her?