This poem famously represents an anti-blazon. The blazon tradition is a poetic trope in which the speaker fragments his lover in order to describe each part as individually perfect—eyes as bright as the sun, lips as red as a rose, skin as white as snow, etc. Here the speaker begins his catalogue of his mistress’ body parts with negation; she is “nothing” like the ideal physical element to which he could compare her. The rest of the poem follows this pattern of anti-blazon.
