But the focus of the late sonnets is less on Shakespeare's mistreatment of the dark lady and more on the faults of the woman herself. He continually refers to her as unattractive; in two of his most famous sonnets, 130 and 141, Shakespeare talks of how physically ugly she is, yet how much he loves her beyond a physical attraction. In Sonnet 130, often proclaimed as one of the most romantic poems ever written, he writes of how the dark lady's "eyes are nothing like the sun" and continues to bash all the poetic descriptions of women as false. They are much more complimentary, he says, than the reality: a stinky, ugly, ungraceful woman. However, he ends the poem by saying that he loves her anyway, with a love that transcends that of the general, abstract love described by poets. In 141, he continues this theme that he does "not love [her] with [his] eyes." However, he notes, it is his heart that loves her, despite his eyes' being repulsed by her. It is this theme, found in many of his late sonnets, that offers the best evidence for Anne as the dark lady. At eight years older than he, the country Anne must have seemed much less attractive to Shakespeare than the young, sophisticated court women Shakespeare encountered daily at this point in his life.
So, is Anne the dark lady? There is no more evidence for or against her than for or against the other women brought forth. Perhaps it is a romantic notion to think of Shakespeare in love with his wife, albeit a different, violent, unattractive love. And perhaps, as some scholars have suggested, there was no autobiographical content to the sonnets; perhaps they were simply literary experiments. But isn't it fun to think "what if?"
