Sonnet 130

Sonnet 130 reminds me very much of Billy Collin’s poem “Litany” in that they both seem to make fun of other love poems, in which a lover is compared to various objects. The first quatrain discusses what the speaker’s mistress is not. Her eyes are nothing like the sun, her lips are not as red as coral, her breats are filthy when compared to snow, and her hair is like black wires. The second quantrain continues, the colors of roses are not in her cheeks, and perfumes smell better than her breath. The third quatrain claims that music sounds better than her voice and that she treads on the ground. The couplet ends the poem with stating that despite all these things, she is as special as any woman who other poets have written about with false comparisons. Although the sonnet sounds as if the speaker is insulting his mistress, I don’t believe that that was the intention of the writer. I believe the poem should be taken sarcastically, that the speaker is more making fun of other love poems rather than declaring his own beliefs.