MY MISTRESS EYES (SONNET 130)

My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun;

Coral is far more red than her lips' red:

If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;

If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.

I have seen roses damasked, red and white,

But no such roses see I in her cheeks;

And in some perfumes is there more delight

Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.

I love to hear her speak, yet well I know

That music hath a far more pleasing sound.

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.

Structure: three quatrains and a final couplet

Rhyme scheme: ABAB CDCD EFEF GG

Shakespeare is creating a composition that is a parody of the courtly love poetry. He was able to transform the codes. This sonnet present a woman in an unusual way, in fact he does not respect the common rules of the courtly love poetry.

Shakespeare manteins the rules of the Elizabethan sonnet but he takes distances from the typical conventions: he transforms the features.

In fact, they are more realistic: the characteristics of the woman are not the characteristics of an angel ( usually in "courtly love poetry" women arfe described like an angel.

In this sonnet Shakespeare uses the language of sense impression, he appeals to sight, smell and hearing, so the sonnet sounds more realistic.

This sonnet can be called anti Petrarchan.