Sonnet XVIII: Shall I Compare Thee To A Summer's Day

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?

Thou art more lovely and more temperate.

Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,

And summer's lease hath all too short a date.

Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,

And often is his gold complexion dimm'd;

And every fair from fair sometime declines,

By chance or nature's changing course untrimm'd;

But thy eternal summer shall not fade

Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st;

Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st in his shade,

When in eternal lines to time thou grow'st:

So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,

So long lives this and this gives life to thee.


ABOUT THE AUTHOR; WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE (1564-1616)

William Shakespeare was born in Stratford-upon-Avon, England, in 1564. This was the sixth year of the reign of Queen Elizabeth I. He was christened on April 26 of that year. The day of his birth is unknown. It has long been celebrated on April 23, the feast of St. George.

William was the third child and oldest son of John and Mary Arden Shakespeare. Two sisters, Joan and Margaret, died before he was born. The other children were Gilbert, a second Joan, Anne, Richard, and Edmund. Only the second Joan outlived William.

Shakespeare's father was a tanner and glovemaker. He was an alderman of Stratford for years. He also served a term as high bailiff, or mayor. Toward the end of his life John Shakespeare lost most of his money. When he died in 1601, he left William only a little real estate. Not much is known about Mary Shakespeare, except that she came from a wealthier family than her husband.

Stratford-upon-Avon is in Warwickshire, called the heart of England. In Shakespeare's day it was well farmed and heavily wooded. The town itself was prosperous and progressive (see Stratford-upon-Avon). The town was proud of its grammar school. Young Shakespeare went to it, although when or for how long is not known. He may have been a pupil there between his 7th and 13th years. His studies must have been mainly in Latin. The schooling was probably good. All four schoolmasters at the school during Shakespeare's boyhood were graduates of Oxford University.

Nothing definite is known about his boyhood. From the content of his plays, he must have learned early about the woods and fields, about birds, insects, and small animals, about trades and outdoor sports, and about the country people he later portrayed with such good humor. Then and later he must have picked up an amazing stock of facts about hunting, hawking, fishing, dances, music, and other arts and sports. Among other subjects, he also must have learned about alchemy, astrology, folklore, medicine, and law. As good writers do, he must have collected information both from books and from daily observation of the world around him.

POEM SUMMARY.

William Shakespeare’s Sonnet 18 is part of a group of 126 sonnets. Shakespeare wrote that are addressed to a young man of great beauty and promise.

In this group of sonnets, the speaker urges the young man to marry and perpetuate his virtues through children, and warns him about the destructive power of time, age, and moral weakness.

Sonnet 18 focuses on the beauty of the young man, and how beauty fades, but his beauty will not because it will be remembered by Shakespeare starts the poem with a metaphoric question in line one asking if he should compare the man to a summer’s day.

This asks if he should compare the beauty of a summer’s day to the beauty of the young man about whom Shakespeare is writing. Line two of this poem states “Thou art more lovely and more temperate.
This poem that Shakespeare wrote, in the octave, describes how all beauty fades except for the man about whom Shakespeare is writing.

Lines thirteen and fourteen say that as long as this poem is read, the man’s beauty will never go away, because every time someone reads the poem they will be reminded of his beauty. Shakespeare uses “the eye of heaven” as a metaphor in this line to describe the sun.

Line three, “Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,” tells why the man’s beauty is greater than that of a summer’s day.

Shakespeare makes use of much symbolism and many other figurative devices in this poem that contribute and emphasize to the overall theme of the poem.

In the sestet, the poem tells about how the man’s beauty stays alive and out lives all other beauty.

Line five states another imperfection of the summer.

In lines seven and eight the speaker ends the complication by describing how nature is never perfect.

“Eternal summer” in line nine is referring back to the man’s eternal beauty, using summer to symbolize beauty, and saying that the man’s beauty will never fail like the summer’s beauty.

This emphasizes the man’s beauty and how the man is viewed by the speaker.

Line nine starts the resolution of the poem by using the conjunction “but”.

The octave also tells of how great the man’s beauty is compared to everything else that is beautiful.

In line two the speaker is describing the man as more lovely and more moderate than a summer’s day.