Sonnet 130 - William Shakespeare 

In Sonnet 130 Shakespeare describes the features of his not-so-beautiful mistress. The first line of the sonnet, "My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun;" suggests from the beginning that this will not be a very heartfelt piece. This theme keeps recurring throughout the sonnet as he describes the horrid things about her such as her breath, "Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks." After further analyzing the poem one may learn that it is entirely satirical. Throughout the whole poem he criticizes his mistress' features and at the end he writes "I grant I never saw a goddess go;My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground:And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare As any she belied with false compare." In these last four lines he explains why he wrote sonnet. He says that his mistress is not a goddess so he will not make her seem like one. 


I don't agree with Shakespeare's message in Sonnet 130. He makes his mistress out to be ugly, and granted she may be, but no man should say their lover is ugly. They should always make her out to be the most beautiful woman they know. Throughout the sonnet he continually harps on her poor qualities and not once says she is beautiful in any way. Most writers make their lovers out to be the best thing in the world, nothing else is even comparable to them. For example, Leia Organa from the original Star Wars. She was not the prettiest woman in all the galaxy but Han Solo thought she was the most gorgeous woman he had ever seen and me made that very clear. No one should think that their lover is as ugly as Shakespeare made his out to be. They should see that they are beautiful no matter what. Sure, Shakespeare wanted to poke fun at other writers for comparing their lovers to goddesses, but I don't believe in the message he is trying to convey.