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Analysis of Shakespeare's Sonnet 130
is not, praise cannot mend the brow.
We can find the idea in the sonnets as well.
In 83:
I never saw that you did painting need,
And therefore to your fair no painting set;
67: Why should false paint imitate his cheek,
And steel dead seeming of his living hue?
Why should poor beauty indirectly seek
Roses of shadow, since his rose is true
21:
So it is not with me as with that Muse
Stirr’d by a painted beauty to his verse,
Who heaven itself for ornament doth use
And every fair with his fair doth rehearse
I think all the three interpretations are possible, though I prefer the third one because in my opinion, it fits best with the rest of the sonnet and accomplishes the hints made in the quartains. The idea is slowly developed – in the first two quartains, the negation of conventional comparisons is introduced and it looks like the mistress is being criticised. Then the third quatrain suggests the sonnet is in fact a mockery. I believe the verse “I grant I never saw a goddess go” is particularly important, as it there is an ironical tone in it, which leads me to the third interpretation. The couplet then softens the criticism above, when the mistress is called “my love”; and augments the ironical tone of the third quatrain – “any she belied with false compare”.
In conclusion – the sonnet mocks the Petrarchan conventional comparisons in order to contend with the problem of the Dark Lady being not beautiful in the traditional way, and to contrast the ”real” and the “artificial” – the Dark Lady and the imaginary beauties praised by poets.