Sonnet 130 is Shakespeare's stark but realistic tribute to his rather ordinary mistress. Conventional love poetry of his time employed Petrarchan imagery and entertained notions of courtly love. Francesco Petrarca, often known for the perfection of the sonnet form, developed a series of techniques to describe the pleasures and torments of love, as well as the beauty of the beloved. While Shakespeare adheres to this form, he also undermines it. Through the use of deliberately subversive wordplay and exaggerated similes, ambiguous concepts, and adherence to the sonnet form, Shakespeare creates a parody of the traditional love sonnet. Although, in the end, Shakespeare embraces the overarching Petrarchan theme of all-consuming, all-consuming love. Sonnet 130 openly mocks the traditional love sonnets of the time. This is perhaps made most evident through the use of subversive comparisons and exaggerated similes. The intention of a subversive comparison is to imitate a traditional comparison yet highlight the opposite purpose. While his contemporaries compared the beauty of their love to alabaster or pearls, Shakespeare observes, "If the snow be white, why then are her breasts dark" (3), thus intentionally downplaying the beauty of his mistress. Later he states: “…in some perfumes there is more pleasure / than in the breath that stinks from my mistress” (7-8). Both exemplify the fact that Shakespeare ridicules the traditional love sonnet by employing the same imagery to convey opposing intentions. Closely related to subversive comparisons, Shakespeare also makes use of exaggerated similes. Unlike his contemporaries, Shakespeare presents his mistress in conventionally negative terms. “My mistress's eyes are nothing like the sun / cor...... center of the paper...... resolution of her argument by implementing a twist in both the ninth line and the final couplet to support her claim . He makes it known in the lines: "I like to hear her speak, yet I know well / that music has a much more pleasant sound" (9-10) and again in the final couplet, "And yet, by heaven, I think that my love let it be rare / like any other who has belied with false comparisons" (13-14) who, despite her flaws, appreciates his company and realizes that she has been misrepresented by ridiculous comparisons. Shakespeare's Sonnet 130, while employing Petrarchan imagery and form, also weakens it. Although, in the end, Shakespeare embraces the overarching Petrarchan theme of all-consuming, all-consuming love. Works Cited "The Renaissance". The Norton Anthology of Western Literature. Ed. Sarah N. Lawall. Eighth edition. Volume 1. New York: W. W. Norton, 2006. 1894-1918. Press.