In Elizabethan Age, the sonnets had advanced into a form with new metric and rhyme scheme that was departing from Petrarchan sonnets. Yet, Elizabethan sonnets still carried the tradition of Petrarchan conceit. Petrarchan conceit was a figure used in love poems consisting detailed yet exaggerated comparisons to the lover's mistress that often emphasized the use of blazon. The application of blazon would emphasize more on the metaphorical perfection of the mistresses due to the natural objects were created by God, hence when the mistresses were better than nature, then there would be nothing better than the mistresses. Sonnet 130 written by William Shakespeare developed into an anti-Petrarchan position by denying the image of Petrarchan poet's mistresses who always were ideal and idolized. Any lover's mistress in Petrachan poet's sonnet would expect to ha
Nevertheless, the speaker created his mistress to a contradictory image of an ideal lover. The speaker insisted that his "mistress' eyes" were "noting like the sun. Coral" was "far more red than her lips' red" and "if snow be white," then "her breasts" were "dun." He also commented that "if hairs be wires, black wires" grew "on her head." Furthermore, her skin was dark and not smooth; her breath was unpleasant too. These descriptions summed up to an objectionable image of her, which suggested that the speaker was trying to portray his beloved to a person who was uglier than the rest of the mistresses. In addition, he described that his "mistress, when she" walked, she treaded "on the ground" which indicated his mistress was a real woman but not like the ideal goddess-like or fictional lovers that other poets created.
Throughout the poem, the speaker described what his mi
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