Would Shakespeare be Catfishing’s next victim?

Catfishing.

it is “a deceptive activity where a person creates a sockpuppet social networking presence, or fake identity on a social network account, usually targeting a specific victim for abuse, deception, or fraud.”

While during the Elizabeth era Tinder was not trending on the App Store, it is plausible to imagine how one could get catfished. Using letters to communicate with a lover, requires even less effort to be put in from a catfish or as they don’t need to show their face. However, through this notion of cat fishing or social expectation expressed through the influence of Renaissance art and the Romantic period, indeed, both men and women at times would employ a temporal or permanent facade for their lover.

Botticelli’s ‘Venus’ depicts an angelic woman with white skin, flowing hair, rosy cheeks and beautiful hands and feet. This image of the woman is the stereotype and societal expectation for what women are to present themselves as. This painterliness that is used to present the visual image of a woman evokes emotions which are unrealistic for a woman to provoke. 

So the question is, would Shakespeare fall victim to this type of deception? 

Shakespeare Sonnet 130, deliberately and explicitly contrasts the archetypal acceptable images portrayed in society at the time. At the beginning of the Sonnet, he describes a visually unfavourable woman. He juxtaposes her “dun breasts” against an ideal “snow white” woman’s. More over, Shakespeare in the last four lines concludes;
“And I grant I never saw a goddess go;
My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground
And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare
As any she belied with false compare.” 
These four lines, stand out amongst the sonnet through the rhyming couplet at the end. Shakespeare portrays how imperfection equates to beauty and how owning one’s own identity is a rare uniqueness. “She belied”, alludes to the idealised “she’s” who are beautiful and manage their appearance in order to conform. “By heaven” is expletive and subverts the original notion of the sonnet and of the artists at the time who elevate women for being beautiful physically, by saying it is truly heavenly to oppose and embrace your own beauty and uniqueness.

So would Shakespeare fall victim to cat fishing? 

No, because he isn’t looking for a manufactured, doll like stereotype in a partner, he seeks authenticity which he believes transcends human beauty.