Question

What is the best summary of the central idea of "Sonnet 130”?

Answer 1

Answer:

Here, the speaker compares their sweetheart to several other beautiful people, and never for the sake of the beloved. When contrasted to snow, her breasts are brown and her hair is black. In the second quatrain, the speaker claims he has seen flowers divided into red and white, but in his mistress's cheeks, he sees no such roses. Furthermore, the perfume-like breath he says that his mistress exudes is less pleasurable than the fragrance of roses. He concedes that music "has a lot more appealing sound," and he acknowledges that, though he has never seen a deity, his lady, unlike a goddess, walks on the earth. The speaker of the couplet goes on to say that “by heaven,” he believes his love is “rare and valuable,” as if she were “belied by false comparison.”