In sonnet 130 William Shakespeare confronts the traditional Petrarchan conventions by

comparing his mistress to nature in a literal way, without alerting and embellishing the
reality. On the contrary to Petrarch’s idealized and overly romanticized love for Laura,
Shakespeare’s depiction is deprived of delusive imagery. Firstly, sonnet 130 subverts the
traditional conventions by indicating that comparisons of women to nature are not authentic
and, in fact, detached from reality. For instance, Shakespeare states that “My mistress' eyes
are nothing like the sun”, and by using the phrase “nothing like” he puts an emphasis on the
fact that the eyes of the aforementioned female are not bright. He entirely negates his
mistress relation to wonders of nature. He goes on to say that “If snow be white, why then
her breasts are dun” which is a blunt proclamation that his mistress’s features do not
measure up to the standards of beauty and do not compare to the pure whiteness of snow.
Furthermore, Shakespeare undermines the core of Petrarchan literary themes by portraying
a woman, not as a goddess, but as a flawed human being. The poet refuses to perceive his
mistress as a mythical creature when he writes “I grant I never saw a goddess go; My
mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground”. Moreover, what also distinguishes
Shakespearean poem from the Petrarchan one is the different positioning of the love
confession in the poem. In sonnet 130 a very conceive love declaration is introduced in the
last couplet, where the persona says: “And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare” and also
“As any she belied with false compare” which determines the true feelings toward the
mistress despite the realist depiction. In conclusion, Shakespearean sonnets differ from
Petrarchan conventions by not portraying the woman in an idealized, goddess-like way and
declaring love in a brief form.