Sonnet 18

Sonnet 18

“Sonnet 18” by William Shakespeares

(1)     Shall I compare thee to a Summer’s day?

(2)     Thou art more lovely and more temperate:

(3)     Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May, And

(4)     Summer’s lease hath all too short a date:

(5)     Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,

(6)     And often is his gold complexion dimm’d,

(7)   And every fair from fair sometime declines,

(8)   By chance, or nature’s changing course, untrimm’d:

(9)   But thy eternal Summer shall not fade,

(10) Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st;

(11) Nor shall death brag thou wander’st in his shade,

(12) When in eternal lines to time thou grow’st:

(13) So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,

(14) So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

Structure

There are 14 lines made up of three quatrains (four lines) in Sonnet 18. Each sonnet has a very specific argument. This structure helps to make the argument more logical.

First quatrain

The poet considers his lover and questions whether she should be compared to a Summer’sday.

The first quatrain sets up the problem –is it complimentary to compare one’s lover to a Summer Day? and is this an accuratecomparison?

Second quatrain

In this quatrain the issue is discussed further. Again, Shakespeare is questioning whether he can compare his love to a Summer’s day.

He discusses further the issue raised in the first quatrain, giving more reasons why perhaps it is not a good comparison.

The discussion becomes more generalized, not limited to only one summer’s day – a preparation for the argument to develop along more abstract lines in the third quatrain, and to take in the universal idea of the fading of beauty with time.

Third quatrain

Here Shakespeare extends his argument. He says not only is the sun’s beauty something that doesn’t last and can be overshadowed, but his love is in fact more beautiful than the sun because her beauty as it is described in the poem doesn’t fade, but in actual fact grows fairer.

Rhyming couplet

These last two lines conclude the argument of the poet, and we are supposed, at this point, to be completely convinced that he is right. He brings the two elements of the argument  together – that his loved one is beautiful, and that his poem can preserve that beauty through time, while days dawn and fade.

The rhythm of the sonnet

There is also a fixed pattern of stresses and rhythm in each line of sonnets. If you read these lines aloud, you will notice that each of them has the same pattern of stressed syllables.

Metaphor

There are many examples of imagery and symbols in this sonnet. Some of them are:

The sun is referred to as the eye of heaven. This is an example of a metaphor – it creates a powerful image in your imagination.

The sun is also described as having a gold complexion. Again this is a wonderfully descriptive image – and an example of personification because the sun is given the human characteristic of having a complexion.

In terms of symbols – the whole poem revolves around whether likening his love to a summer’s day is an adequate comparison.