Analysis of William Shakespeare: Sonnet 18
William Shakespeare’s sonnet 18: Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day is a typical English or Shakespearean sonnet when it comes to its formal characteristics. Thus, the sonnet contains three quartets, and a couplet. Furthermore, the sonnet has the characteristic rhyme scheme of English sonnets: AB AB CD CD EF EF GG. The form of English sonnets often encourages the thorough consideration of an argument or idea, which is then wittily illustrated or summed up somehow in the final couplet . In comparison to the typical form of English sonnets, I find the form of Shakespeare’s sonnet 18 to be somewhat different. But, admittedly, sonnet 18 does encourage the thorough consideration of a particular idea. The idea being to compare the poet’s beloved to a summer’s day. However, this idea is not wittily illustrated or summed up in the final couplet. Instead, Shakespeare uses the last lines of the sonnet to go in a new direction towards a surprising conclusion. Until line 8, Shakespeare has compared his object of affection to a summer’s day, whereas in lines 9-14, the attention is shifted towards arguing that poetry is immortal. Consequently, the form in sonnet 18 is not the form of a typical English sonnet. Instead, interestin
At this stage of the sonnet, Shakespeare has described the imperfections of the summer, and stressed that his loved one is superior to the summer. One is tempted to assume that this leads up to a conclusion that also deals with the comparison between the summer and Shakespeare’s beloved. However, as I mentioned earlier, the sonnet takes a shift in attention from line 9 onwards, and ends up with a surprising conclusion. In line 9 it is actually a bit unclear whether Shakespeare is still comparing his loved one to the summer. He does state that “thy eternal summer shall not fade” and in line 10, he proceeds with the following: “Nor lose possession of that fair that ow’st”. In these lines, Shakespeare argues that his loved one will remain the same; he will not fade, and he will not lose his beauty . This way Shakespeare’s loved one is described as unchangeable as opposed to the summer which is depicted as changeable. However, a couple of lines later on, it becomes apparent that Shakespeare has now stopped comparing his object of affection to the summer. Instead, he has begun focusing on the immortality of the poem. This can be seen in line 12: “When in eternal lines to time thou grow’st”. The eternal lines are the lines of Shakespeare’s poetry which will remain forever. The point about the immortality of the poem is then elaborated on in the concluding lines of the sonnet (lines 13-14): “So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see. “So long lives this, and this gives live to thee”. In these lines, the poet points out that his poetry (referred to as this) will live on as long as men can breathe, or eyes can see. In other words, his poetry will live on for as long as there are people in the world. Furthermore, it is the poetry which gives life to the poet’s loved one (live to thee). I take this to mean that the beauty of the poet’s loved one o
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Approximate Word count = 1268
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page double spaced)
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