than praising her. He lists the many things that do NOT describe his love. Many of these things are used in traditional sonnets to describe one's love - voice like music, cheeks like roses, golden hair, etc. This man's love, however, is none of these things, and yet he loves her anyway. He does not need to compare her to false things.

Here are some poetic devices. Lots of similes and metaphors:

1. Simile - eyes are nothing like the sun (this is a negative simile, he says her eyes are not like the sun).

2. Metaphor - comparing her lips to coral (another negative - he says her lips are not red like coral)

3. Metaphor - comparing her voice to music (it is NOT like music)

Now, see if you can give it a try. What other comparisons does he make? Remember, they are mostly negative comparisons!

Read about Shakespeare's sonnets here on enotes.

In Sonnet 130, Shakespeare is making fun of the literary clichés that were commonly used in love poems, the similes and metaphors used to describe female beauty so frequently that they no longer seemed sincere but routine and uninspired. Female eyes were compared to the sun, lips to coral, breasts to snow, cheeks to roses, breath to perfumes, voices to music, and bodily movements to the supernatural grace of goddesses. In the last line, “As any she [i.e., any woman] belied with false compare,” he is saying that poets who use such exaggerations in love poems are lying, and perhaps suggesting that such lovers are not to be trusted by women, making himself by inference sincere and trustworthy.

The literal meaning of Sonnet 130 is that the speaker loves his mistress even though she is not aesthetically perfect. The speaker catalogs a number of ways in which his mistress falls short physically: Her eyes do not shine like the sun does, her lips are not as red as coral, and her breasts, rather than being white, are grey. Her hair resembles black wires, and her cheeks are not red like roses. She has putrid breath, and her voice is not pleasing. 

The figurative meaning of the sonnet is its critique of the conventions of Petrarchan love poetry. Shakespeare employs a series of similes (comparisons that are a form of figurative language) that Petrarch and other poets often used to praise the ideal woman. These comparisons created the image of a woman who no real woman could ever equal, and the sonnet is therefore satirizing the way in which the love poetry of the time created images of the feminine ideal that no woman could ever achieve. 

In addition, some scholars have regarded the lines "I have seen roses damask'd, red and white, But no such roses see I in her cheeks;" as an allusion to the Wars of the Roses, a conflict between the Houses of York and Lancaster that took place between 1455 and 1487 over control of the English throne. The House of Tudor, founded in 1485, adopted the York and Lancaster Rose as its symbol after the Wars of the Roses, and this rose has red and white streaks. This sonnet was published in 1609, after the House of Tudor was no longer in power, but the sonnet may have been written before 1603, when the House of Tudor was still in power. 

Shakespeare's Sonnet CXXX is written as what is called a blazon, which is a literary poem that catalogs the characteristics and virtues of the beloved, while at the same time it mocks the Elizabethan conventions of poetry that praise love. In addition, it satirizes the Petrarchan sonnet that compares the lover to Nature in terms that seem hyperbolic.

• Literal meaning

Literally, the speaker's lover is nothing like the women for whom sonnets and other poetic forms are usually written. Her hair does not flow in luxurious tresses; instead, it is as though"black wires grow on her head"; she has no rosy cheeks, and her breath "reeks." Nor is her voice mellifluous as "music hath a far more pleasing sound." And, when she walks she "treads on the ground." Yet, the speaker truly loves her because he feels that his love is more valuable than that of any poetic fancy because he loves her despite her flaws.

• Figurative meaning

The anti-Petrarchan comparisons of the lover to various things lend humor to this sonnet. For instance, Shakespeare parodies the roses in the cheeks, eyes like sunbeams, perfumed breath, and walking on air. She has none of these or any other goddess-like attributes. Her eyes "are nothing like the sun," there is no "perfume" in her breath; it "reeks," and she "treads on the ground" rather than walks. She has no snowy white complexion or goddess-like attributes; yet, the speaker loves her dearly:

And yet, by heaven, I think my love
As rare as any she belied with false compare (ll.13-14)

Any false comparisons for the sake of poetry, Shakespeare says figuratively, are meaningless. It is her unique qualities that endear her, not flowery metaphors and similes.

 “Sonnet 130” by William Shakespeare is a part of group of lyric poems that address a lady that is unknown. This poem is an example of a parody of exaggerated love poetry. A parody is defined as an imitative work which is usually humorous and satirical. Shakepeare’s purpose is to indict the kind of hypocritical, mawkish poetry that have been written for hundreds of years.

Form

In form, this is a typical Shakespearean sonnet.  It has fourteen lines with three quatrains and a rhyming couplet at the end. The set rhyming scheme follows the accepted pattern: ABABCDCDEFEFGG. The poem is written in iambic pentameter or lines of ten syllables with the stress on every second syllable. Because of its rhythmic lines, this sonnet was intended to be read aloud.

Narration

The sonnet is narrated in first person.  The speaker sarcastically describes a woman purported to be his lover.  He makes fun of other poems that might lovingly describe the woman using trite similes and other over used figurative language.

Theme

Every line of the poem refers to the mysterious woman.  Whether it is her eyes, breasts, smell, walk, each bit of information is vague.  It is not the woman that really is the emphasis in this poem.  It is the parody that the poem makes about love poetry and its sentimentality.

Summary

The narrator’s describes his lover:

Eyes are not solar

• It is easy to agree with this simile.  No one expects the eyes to be like the sun. 

Lips red but not coral

• If her lips are red, why do they have to be coral.  That is just a bit persnickety.

Breasts are dull gray and not snowy white.

Hair is black not blond.

• Hair is not wire. Black hair is not less than blonde just different.

Her cheeks have no red and white blush.

Some perfumes give more delight than the horrid breath of his lover.

The narrator loves to hear her speak(a compliment).

Music has a better sound than her voice.

He has never seen a goddess walk but his mistress walks on the ground.

However, his love for this woman is unusual.

Especially since the woman’s traits have been portrayed with ridiculous comparisons.

 And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare
 As any she belied with false compare.

The woman may be beautiful in her own right.  She does not have to have the specific traits that the poet designates.

The poet employs amazing comparisons to illustrate Shakespeare's opinion concerning hyperbolic language in love poetry. It is both unexpected and extraordinary to read a love poem that is honest and with added bonuse of Shakespeare’s literary touches. 

In Shakespeare's Sonnet 130, the speaker parodies traditional love poetry by naming all of the things his love is not.

Traditional love poetry that Shakespeare is lightly ridiculing uses hyperbole to figuratively describe a love object's features.  Shakespeare turns that by saying what his love is not.

• In the first stanza, the speaker says that the object of his love does not have eyes like the sun, red lips like coral, breasts as white as snow, and if hairs can be thought of as wires, hers are black wires.
• In the second, his lover's cheeks are not like roses, and her breath does not smell as nice as perfumes do.
• In three, her voice is nice, but not nearly as pleasing as music, and the speaker isn't sure what a goddess looks like when she walks, but his love just walks on the ground.
• But, says the speaker in the couplet, his lover is just as rare as any she has been compared with by the use of misleading comparisons.

By the way, if Shakespeare is making fun of love poets, he is also making fun of himself, too.  He certainly was not above using a little hyperbole himself.

Sonnet 130 mocks the comparisons that were so often used to make unrealistic--but false--exaggerations about a loved one's beauty.  In each line the speaker tries to compare his lover to one of these usual sources of comparison (the sun, for example), but the lover always comes up short.  It is the couplet that makes the true statement of the speaker's love shine through.  He loves her more than if he were to make these false and unrealistic comparisons.  She's a real woman and he's happy with that.  You will find an excellent explanation of each stanza in the sources listed below.

No poet or playwright has received more attention than that of William Shakespeare, and for good reason. A critical appreciation of his "Sonnet 130" shows his genius. The poem in form is just like his other poems, a sonnet. A sonnet was often used by other poets as a platform to write grandiloquent lines describing the unattainable characteristics of the women they loved. Shakespeare wrote this poem in response to those poets. He writes about all the characteristics they romanticize in realistic terms. Where other poets compare their love's eyes to the sun and voices to that of beautiful music, he states that his "mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun" and that although he loves "to hear her speak, yet well I know/That music hath a far more pleasing sound". He uses this platform to tear down their ridiculous concepts of putting women on an unattainable higher ground. However, note that the ending of this poem falls upon the same romantic notion that his love is rare and unique.

Sonnet 130 may be described as "anti-hyperbole." Normally a similie is constructed that exaggerates descriptions, typically, one might say "My lover's eyes are like the sun," but what Shakespeare does in this sonnet is exactly the opposite -- "My lover's eyes are nothing like the sun,"  which has the curious effect of tying the comparison even tighter than if it had been hyperbolic. With that curious inversion in mind, a paraphrase of the sonnet might be:

My lover's eyes are like the sun
Her lips are redder than coral
Her breasts are as white as snow
Her hair is thick and dark
I've seen red and white roses
And her cheeks are like those roses
And she smells as good as those roses
I love listening to her speaking
More than listening to music
I've never seen a goddess
But my lover is as good as one here on Earth
And my feeling for her is so strong
That anything I've compared her to falls short

Sonnet 130 is an ironical sonnet and, for some, among his least appealing. While sonnets conventionally speak of love for a beloved who is graced with praiseworthy charms and beauties but who are often unreachable and inaccessible, this sonnet opposes that convention and speaks of a beloved who has seemingly not one feature that counts toward beauty but who is very accessible and present. This situational irony and reversal of sonnet convention must be grasped before the sonnet can be understood and a paraphrase constructed.

A quick summary is that, first, the sonneteer compares the beloved's features (adversely) to elements in nature through a series of similes and metaphors in the first quatrain (lines 1-4). At the line 5 volta (turn in topic), he switches to metaphors comparing what he has noticed in her to what he notices elsewhere through the second quatrain (lines 5-8). At the second volta (line 9), he turns to the topics of her speech and walk by comparing them adversely to music and a goddess. The couplet resolves the paradoxes of the love sonnet, having nothing but unfavorable comparisons, by asserting that in his estimation her unloveliness is as valuable ("rare": valuable, like a ruby or emerald) as any beauty.

A prose paraphrase goes something like this:

My beloved's eyes do not shine like the sun. Her lips are not as red as the red of ocean coral. White snow makes the flesh of her breasts look a dull grayish-brown color. Her hair is coarse like wires and black in color.

I've seen roses that are a beautiful red color (damask rose: hybrid rose that is red or pink in color), yet in her cheeks I see no red color like the rose. And perfumes smell sweeter than the breath my mistress breathes out.

I love to hear her speak even though, as I well know, her voice has no music in it. She cannot be compared to a goddess, though I never saw one, because she is of the earth and not of a goddess's heavenly ways.

Nonetheless, by heaven, I count my beloved as valuable as any beauty with whom a comparison would give a false valuation of my beloved's worth ("belie": to give a false impression of or to fail to give a true impression of).

There are differences of opinion on understanding two lines. One is, "My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground." Some suggest this refers to the weight of the beloved and her ponderous walk related to her heaviness. I disagree because goddesses are noted for their heavenly, airy way of "going" rather than for their light-footed traversing of earth. The second is, "As any she belied with false compare." Some suggest this refers to beauties who have been compared to ridiculous things like the sun and moon and dew drops. I disagree because "she" belies "any" focusing the meaning upon what the "mistress" does in relation to others, in this case, showing the true value of her own worth compared to the (perhaps) false value of the worth of shallow beauties.

William Shakespeare’s “Sonnet 130” or “My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun” is what is sometimes called an “anti-Petrarchan sonnet.”

It is in the form of a traditional English or Shakespearean sonnet, consisting of fourteen lines of iambic pentameter rhymed abab cdcd efef gg.

Thematically, the first three quatrains compare his mistress unfavourably to the idealized woman of the Italian sonnet tradition. The comparison is intended to not to insult his mistress, but instead to highlight the complete unreality of the idealized woman of the sonnet convention.

In the final couplet, the narrator asserts that he loves his mistress even though she has normal human imperfections and that the comparison with an unreal ideal is unreasonable.

In Shakespeare's Sonnet 130, the speaker compares his love to various other images of beauty and shows how she falls short in many ways.  Her beauty cannot hold up to the magnificent colors, sounds, and smells of the world; yet, despite this, he loves her still and believes his love can withstand any limitations she possesses.

First, the speaker compares some of his love's facial and bodily features to other everyday objects, including the sun, coral, wires, and snow:

My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun;
Coral is far more red than her lips' red;
If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;
If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head (1-4).

All of these common objects, he states, surpass his love's features in their own ways.  Her eyes are not as bright, her lips not as red, her skin not as white, her hair not as golden.  Additionally, he talks about her deficiences:

I have seen roses damask'd, red and white,
But no such roses see I in her cheeks;
And in some perfumes is there more delight
Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks (5-8).

Saying she has pale skin and bad breath only serves to draw attention to her negative features, which would seem to imply that the speaker is not truly happy with his love.  The speaker tries to be more positive in the next line, saying that he "love(s) to hear her speak," but he seems to ruin this sentiment with his next words:

... yet well I know
That music hath a far more pleasing sound (9-10).

He additionally points out that she seems to lack poise and gracefulness in her movements, for, while a goddess moves seamlessly, "(his) mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground" (11-12).

After such a long list of colorful, image-filled complaints, one would think the author would end on a negative note, but instead, he culminates his comparisons with a positive assertion:

And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare
As any she belied with false compare (13-14).

He believes his love is "rare" - that she is special, unique, and worthy of praise - and he recognizes that his love goes deeper than her appearance.  While in this particular sonnet, the reader doesn't get a full picture of what it is the speaker so loves or admires about his beloved, other Shakespeare's sonnets present a fuller picture of his thoughts and sentiments on this subject.  This sonnet, however, uses powerful contrasts and imagery to reveal the depths of his love.