Sonnet was one of the most popular forms of poetry in Renaissance, thanks to its topics and the ways it conveyed messages through metaphors and comparisons. Sonnets usually followed the rules of the Courtly Love Code and they were particularly appreciated the ones wrote by Petrarch and Shakespeare.  

In sonnet 130 Shakespeare gives a physical description of the woman he loves, by comparing her to natural elements that represent beauty. What comes to the reader’s mind is the question “why would the poet represent his beloved one in such a way?”, the poet, indeed, represents this woman as not really good-looking: her hair looks like black wires, her skin has a dun colour, she stinks and yet she behaves like a divinity. This description makes her appear ugly and arrogant, which is the exact opposite of what the Courtly code imposes: for example, in his sonnets Petrarch always described Laura, the woman he loved, as an angel came on Earth. 

By reversing the canons of Renaissance’s sonnets, the poet wants to make his beloved one appear as a “common person”, not as the usual idealized woman, as she does not exist: the message William Shakespeare wants to convey through this poem is that “beauty is in the eyes of the beholder”, so, even if she might not appear attractive to other man, he still loves her.