Sonnet 130

There were basically two forms of the sonnet Italian and English. The English sonnet takes its name from Shakespeare. It is even called the Shakespearean sonnet. However, Sonnet 130 has an Italian structure with an English rhyme scheme. Shakespeare did this on purpose because he was mocking the Italian's attitudes and conventions when writing about love, which was always the subject of the Italian sonnets. For example, the Italian divided the 14 line poem into an octave and a sestet, the octave presented a problem or situation or expressed a desire and the sestet addressed what was presented in the octave. The rhyme scheme was abba abba cde cde or some variation in the sestet. The subject of the Italian sonnet was always love and the theme was always immortality through verse. In other words, their love lived on the lines of the poem.

The subject is love, and like the Italians, Shakespeare addressed the poem to his lady love too, in this case, the Dark lady. The poem is a parody because Shakespeare is poking fun at how the Italian falsely compare their mistresses. They describe them as being goddesses, having ruby red cheeks and lips like cherries and eyes that sparkle like the sun. They even have golden curls. They write like this just to say their mistresses are special and are worthy of being put on a pedestal. So in Sonnet 130, Shakespeare's descriptions are almost insulting. He states, "My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun," and her lips are not red but coral, her breasts not white buy grayish brown, and her hair not golden curls but like black wires. Is he saying she is ugly? No, he is not. What he is saying is that she is human. He even states that her breath doesn't smell like perfume, and she doesn't have a beautiful voice that sounds like music. He even points out that his mistress is not a goddess, and even though she is not, his love is as rare as any