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 damask'd, 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.

The sonnet I'm going to anlyze in the 130^th and belongs to the shakespearean sonnets in particular to the section addressed to the “Dark Lady”.
As all shakespearean sonnets it is organized in three quatrains and a rhyming couplet.
In the first quatrain the speaking voice compares his mistress to some natural elements like the sun, coral, snow and wires. He characterises his mistress with negative connotations: the sun is better than her eyes, the coral is more corlorful than her lips and her breasts ere darker than snow. Speaking voice's mistress always loses the game, for example in the last line of the first quatrain her hair are compared with wire.
At this point the intelligent reader wonders why the comparisons the poet makes are always at his mistress' disadvantage.
Going on reading the second quatrain the reader doesn't find an answer, yet. Indeed he continues with comparisons and the mistress is always defeated: he doesn't see roses on her cheecks, perfumes are more delight than her breath. In thid quatrain the poet continues to reinforce the idea expressed in the previous quatrain indeed he repeats the negative physical qualities in relation with natural elements.
In the last quatrain the poet ends the climax started in the first quatrain. Again he compares his mistress' voice to music and he says that her walk is very heavy.
In the rhyming couplet there is a 'volta': the speaking voice makes a love declaration to his mistress. This conclusion is unexpected because even if his mistress isn't beautiful as flowers or sun he loves her he loves her unconditionally.
In this sonnet there are some Renaissance's elements:
-the poet inverts the conventional sonnet,

-the mistress is a real woman and not a ideal one,

-nature is presented in a different way.