In this sense, one might argue that the sonnet serves as a kind of 'realistic' love poetry.

Shakespeare is in love with a real woman, who is flawed in some ways, but he still adores her and considers her a treasure. The sonnet thus demonstrates that the metaphors and similes used in traditional romantic poetry tend to be over exaggerated and unrealistic, as Shakespeare declares that he 'think(s) my love as rare/As any she belied with false compare' (13-14). When to the sessions of sweet silent thought. Sonnet 130 is a blazon, a lyric poem cataloging the physical characteristics and virtues of the beloved, in typical English or Shakespearean sonnet formthree quatrains and a couplet in iambic. Visit the Shakespeare Glossary for vocabulary questions Sonnet 130: My mistress eyes. Indeed, Shakespeare explains that 'I grant I never saw a goddess go /My mistress when she walks treads on the ground' (11-12), but he still loves and cherishes her anyway. Ladies hair was often compared to golden wire in Elizabethan poetry. Shakespeare reveals all of his mistress' physical shortcomings, not because he does not find her attractive or appealing, but because he wishes to demonstrate that love does not require that one's partner be perfect. He begins the sonnet by declaring 'My Mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun /Coral is far more red than her lips' red' (1-2). The theme of the poem is the true nature of love and how it can exist even without the conventional trappings of beauty and perfection.

Instead of idolizing his beloved, Shakespeare spends most of the poem pointing out her flaws. Sonnet 130, written by William Shakespeare, is a poem that subverts the traditional love sonnet conventions by using a series of sarcastic and ironic comments to describe the speaker's mistress. In the sonnet 'My Mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun,' William Shakespeare flaunts the conventions of traditional love poetry, while still managing to convey true affection and romance.

Shakespeare sonnet 130