FREE ESSAY ON SHAKESPEARE SONNET 18

SHAKESPEARE SONNET 18

Shakespeare and His Sonnet 18
"Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer's Day?"
William Shakespeare (1564-1616), English poet and playwright, recognized in much of the
world as the greatest of all dramatists, is perhaps the most famous writer in the history
of English literature. By writing plays, Shakespeare earned recognition from his late
16th and early 17th century contemporaries, but he may have looked to poetry for enduring
fame. His poetic achievements include a series of 154 sonnets. Many of the sonnets he
wrote contain lines as well known as any in his plays. One of the perennial themes of
Western literature-the brevity of life-is given poignantly personal and highly original
expression in many of these poems. 
Shakespeare's sonnets are arranged with three quatrains (4 lines) and a couplet (2
lines). This development was sufficiently original for the form to become known as the
Shakespearean sonnet, which employs a rhyme scheme of abab cdcd efef gg. The poet is
challenged to express his profound emotions and thoughts on life, death, war, and history
in the condensed fourteen lines. Sonnet 18 comes from The Sonnets of Shakespeare printed
in 1609:
"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 dimmed;
And every fair form 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
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."
Shakespeare begins the poem with a question that proposes a comparison between his
beloved and a summer season. Summer is chosen because it is the loveliest and the most
pleasant season due to England's cold weather. In the second line the comparison embarks
to favor his beloved: his beloved is more beautiful and less extreme than summer. The
reasons for his adoration are given in the next four lines, which describe the less
pleasant aspects of summer: The wind impairs the beauty of summer, and summer is too
brief. The splendor of summer is affected by the intensity of the sunlight, and as the
season changes, summer becomes less beautiful. Here Shakespeare uses the word fair with a
double connotation, the clear and sunny weather and the pleasing appearance of a
beautiful woman, indicating that any beauty will fade one day. 
Starting from the ninth line Shakespeare shifts his tone with a great passion: "Thy
eternal summer shall not fade." She, unlike summer, will never deteriorate. Summer has by
now become the summer of life and beauty. In the next three lines the poet's assurance
becomes even firmer with promises that his beloved will neither become less beautiful nor
even die, because she is immortalized through his poetry. Line ten and eleven give an
answer in comparison with line six and seven: The summer's fair declines, but the
fairness of his beloved will be everlasting. The summer's sun dims, but the life and
beauty of his beloved will be eternal. In line twelve the "eternal lines to time" not
only refers to lines of poetry but also implies lines of shape, the shape of beauty.
Because of the eternal lines of the poem, the life and beauty of his beloved will thrive
and flourish. The poem finishes with a triumphant couplet, which explains and summarizes
the theme: poetry gives timeless life to beauty. 
In the poem "Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?" Shakespeare compares the summer's
imperfection with his beloved's perfection. The poet employs the step-by- step arguments,
to reach the conclusion: poetry is immortal and makes beauty immortal. According to
Shakespeare, the grace and effectiveness of the art of poetry is superior to nature, and
thus makes it timeless and eternal, just like his beloved.