William Shakespeare’s Sonnet 130 is not mockery, but is in fact the purest

proclamation of affection: The poet does not falsely glorify his mistress but instead
honors her for her honest flaws. In the first quatrain, Shakespeare uses repetition of
the consonant ‘s’ to set a sinister tone as he eloquently slanders his mistress’s
appearance. The ‘s’ sound paired with the sounds of ‘th’, ‘w’, and ‘h’ creates a
shocking contrast of euphonic sounds used as brutal insults. Words like ‘nothing,”
“lips,” “snow,” “white,” “why,” “breasts,” and “wires” sound harmonious as they
degrade the object of the poem in almost casual crudeness. Simultaneously, the
detail of these insults suggests an infatuation with the object’s features, however
imperfect they are. In the second and third quatrains, the poet uses the odd lines to
build up an exquisite description, and then once again butchers his lover’s image in
the even lines. Even here, however, the poet pays his lover an uncommon kind of
homage. “Damasked” hints at an ethereal veil to cover his mistress’ shortcomings,
helped along by ‘roses … red and white’ to suggest the gentle beauty of this mask.
Her flaws became exposed and obvious when ‘no such roses’ adorn the lover’s
face. Yet the detail with which the poet betrays her faults would suggest that he
chooses his love of his mistress’ flaws over the shallow beauty of a romanticized
mask. Later on in the line ‘I grant I never saw a goddess go’ the poet admits that he
has never seen divinity, but he finds himself assured that his lover is just as human
as he is because she ‘treads on the ground’. While the admission may seem like
another brutal blow, it reveals that the poet and his mistress deserve each other's
affection, because one can never truly love another until both accept each other as
equals. The poet sees her as a human deserving of love, flaws and all, not a
‘goddess’ to be praised and isolated in her splendor. ‘And yet’ the poet concludes
in the final couplet, ‘by heaven I think my love as rare/As any she belied with false
compare.’ The essence of this simple sonnet written by a mortal hand unmasks the
divine truth of love; affection strengthens when lovers accept each other as a
flawed human beings rather than expecting to find the light of the sun held in a
mortal’s eyes.