Sonnet 130

One primary theme of “Sonnet 130” centers on the relationship between beauty and truth. The series of comparisons indicate a common, if not unprepossessing, woman. Based on conventional norms, the juxtapositions don’t paint the picture of an adored beauty. Again and again, the speaker brings up something typically thought of as beautiful or desirable, only to negate the mistress’s connection to that thing: Her “eyes are nothing like the sun” (Line 1), she doesn’t smell like “perfumes” (Line 7), she doesn’t sound like “music” (Line 10), and so on. As the prominent American literary critic Helen Vendler writes in The Art of Shakespeare’s Sonnets (1997), the sequence of coarse comparisons makes the first 12 lines sound “like a denigration” (557). By pointing out how the mistress isn’t like so many beautiful things, he’s more or less calling her ugly and demeaning her.

In the final two lines, the speaker clarifies his intent. His love for his mistress is “rare” (Line 13), and he doesn’t want to taint their singular bond with lies or “false compare” (Line 14). Thus, the sonnet pairs truth with beauty. Vendler writes that Shakespeare’s mistress “is a real woman, and doesn’t need any false compare to distort her attractions” (556).