![]() ![]() This sonnet compares the poet's mistress to a number of natural beauties each time making a point of his mistress' obvious inadequacy in such comparisons she cannot hope to stand up to the beauties of the natural world. Shakespeare satirizes the hyperbole of the allusions used by conventional poets, which even by the Elizabethan era, had become cliché, predictable, and uninspiring. The images conjured by Shakespeare were common ones that would have been well-recognized by a reader or listener of this sonnet. It was customary to praise the beauty of the object of one's affections with comparisons to beautiful things found in nature and heaven, such as stars in the night sky, the golden light of the rising sun, or red roses. Influences originating with the poetry of ancient Greece and Rome had established a tradition of this, which continued in Europe's customs of courtly love and in courtly poetry, and the work of poets such as Petrarch. ![]() Sonnet 130 satirizes the concept of ideal beauty that was a convention of literature and art in general during the Elizabethan era. William Shakespeare's Sonnet 130 mocks the conventions of the showy and flowery courtly sonnets in its realistic portrayal of his mistress. ![]()
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