Using integrated linguistic and literary approaches, explore the imagery used in Shakespeare's Sonnet 130.

POINT; Shakespeare contrasts his love with the conventional beauty of a woman of the Elizabethan era, through contrasting her appearance to the beauty of nature.EVIDENCE; This can be evidenced through the declarative utterance; "if snow be white, why then her breasts are dun,". EXPLAIN; The adjectival "white" establishes how the fairer a woman's complexion, the more beautiful that woman is and this was a conventional representation of femininity during the Elizabethan era.ANALYSIS; However, throughout the sonnet, Shakespeare works not only to go against the conventions of Elizabethan beauty, but also to the conventions of Petrarchan poetry, and works to mock the genre. Through using the natural image of "snow" which could be said to represent purity as well as skin tone, Shakespeare clearly contrasts his love with conventional beauty. This is heightened as using nature as a contrasting element clearly make the idealised beauty unattainable and impossible to achieve. This is reinforced by the use of the adjective 'dun' which reinforces how his love does not conform to the Elizabethan standards of femininity. Furthermore, this works to subvert the Petrarchan conventions as the sonnet highlights all which Shakespeare's love is not, whereas a typical Petrarchan sonnet would idealise and worship the woman; this acts as foreshadowing for the final couplets where Shakespeare delivers his true intentions, marking him as forward-thinking for the Elizabethan era.