Sonnet 130 shows the romanticized image of ideal beauty in Shakespeares time strongly mirrors modern medias fictitious images, but Shakespeares portrayal of the role of beauty goes against contemporary and modern beliefs.

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The definition of beauty has changed through out time, like clothing going in and out of style. Every era or after a historical event, a different woman is considered the ideal beauty. It's impossible to have one woman represent a whole population of women in the world or in countries; so who set the standards for facial beauty? No one can answer that question but it is easier to choose a representative who meet the standards of beauty. Sonnet 130 shows the romanticized image of ideal beauty in Shakespeare's time strongly mirrors modern media's fictitious images, but Shakespeare's portrayal of the role of beauty goes against contemporary and modern beliefs.

The Greeks were the first to come up with an idea of what the ideal woman should look like based off of the Greek goddess, "Aphrodite, deity of physical appearance" (91). In order to be beautiful like Aphrodite, "beauty, by Greeks standards, was defined in terms of harmonious proportion of facial features. To explain the nature of harmony, Greeks looked to mathematics" (91). Even though the face had to be proportionate, the Greeks still had specific characteristics that they still found beautiful such as: pale skin, blond hair,