FORM:

The rhyme scheme in the quatrains is a cross rhyme (abab cdcd efef) and the last two lines are
a rhyming couplet (gg). William Shakespeare uses an iambic pentameter throughout the
poem.

SUMMARY
In William Shakespeare’s “Sonnet 130”, the speaker talks about his mistress who does not
correspond with the ideals of beauty. The speaker compares her with beautiful things, but he
cannot find a similarity. But he points out that his love does not depend on how she looks like.
Shakespeare uses a lot of metaphors and mocks the conventional idea of love, using every
metaphor against itself such as in the first two line, “My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the
sun; Coral is far more red than her lips’ red; ” which emphasizes on the idea that his
“mistress” is not a very appealing lady. The poet used the example of a woman who is not
physically perfect or even beautiful to emphasize and stress the idea that love is deeper and
more important than these superficial and trivial comparisons about body beauty. While his
mistress may not have had silky and beautiful hair and sweet breath, he is still totally
captivated by her and considers his love to be as rare as any other.

Literary Devices:

Shakespeare used antithesis as a useful poetic device to convey his ideas where he breaks his
mistress into body parts that are negative.
The anaphora “My mistress” starts the poem and ends the three quatrains.
Alliteration: is the repetition of consonant sound at the beginning of two or more words in
the same line of poetry.