SONNET 18
Introduction
About the poet:
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE-(1564-1616)
William Shakespeare- English dramatist and poet. He is widely considered the
greatest playwright who ever lived.
He is renowned for his Sonnet writing. Elizabethan Sonnets are also known as
Shakespearean Sonnets.
About the poem:
Published in 1609.
Praises an anonymous person – someone loved by the speaker
Works cleverly with a (clichéd) metaphor to try and describe the subject’s beauty.
Like many of Shakespeare's sonnets, the poem wrestles with the nature of beauty
and with the capacity of art to represent that beauty.
The poem’s simplicity, endearing message, and uplifting tone have made it a
favourite love poem.
The poem
William Shakespeare, Sonnet 18
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, 5
And often is his gold complexion dimmed;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance, or nature’s changing course, untrimmed;
But thy eternal summer shall not fade,
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st, 10
Nor shall death brag thou wand’rest 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.
Sonnet 18: A Modern Version
Shall I compare you to a summer’s day?
You’re way more lovely and far more chill.
Summer’s winds can blow too hard and fade away,
And its beauty doesn’t last—time will kill.
The sun’s too bright, or clouds block its shine,
And every perfect thing starts to decline.
But your beauty? It’s eternal, divine—
It won’t fade, not in my heart or my mind.
Time can’t ruin what we’ve got right here,
You’re immortal in the words I’ve penned.
As long as people read, you’ll stay near,
Alive in this poem, with no end.
Analysis
Stanza 1 and 2:
Stanza 3 and 4:
Structure:
SHAKESPEAREAN SONNET
A poem with 14 lines.
Divided into four stanzas (stanza= group of lines)
First three stanzas have four lines each = quatrain
The poem ends with a two-line stanza in which the two lines rhyme = rhyming
couplet
Structured rhyme scheme (every alternate letter + the rhyming couplet)
e.g. ABAB CDCD EFEF GG
RHYME SCHEME is typically represented by using letters to demonstrate which
lines/words rhyme with which.
Tone:
Uplifting and celebratory but also calm and certain in its delivery.
This is achieved by the extended metaphor in the poem and the natural pauses
caused by the poem’s structure and punctuation.
Theme:
We can honour the beauty of the person we love through our art.
Beauty can be immortalised through poetry – the subject’s beauty will never be
altered by death or time because they will live forever through the poem.
Art is eternal / a form of eternal life.
