Answer:
The statement that best summarizes William Shakespeare's Sonnet 130 is:
C. Sonnet 130 parodies a traditional love sonnet by bringing out the flaws in the physical beauty of the mistress.
Explanation:
At the time Shakespeare wrote Sonnet 130, it was the rule for sonnets to compare the poets' muses to things found in nature. They would always come to the same conclusion - that the woman they loved was far more beautiful than anything else in the universe. They were more beautiful than a rose, than the sky, than the moon, etc.
Sonnet 130, however, parodies those other traditional sonnets by doing the opposite. The speaker in Sonnet 130 makes it clear that his beloved one is not as beautiful or does not smell as delightful as what is offered by nature. In the first quatrain, he states her eyes are not as bright as the sun, her lips are not redder than a coral, her breasts are not as white as snow, and her hair is like strands of wire. Still, he loves her. Only he is expressing his love in a much more realistic - and funny - manner.
