SONNET 18
TEXT
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 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;
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.
• Form: Shakespearean sonnet
• Theme: You can immortalize things with writing and
other works of art.
• So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
• So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.
ANALYSIS
• Figurative language
• Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?
• The speaker then subverts this comparison by listing negative things
about summer: it is too short and too hot
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;
• Because of these things “Thou art more lovely and more
temperate”, and the beloved has a summer that will last forever.
• Death is a proud personality who brags.
• Common in literature
• Language of borrowing and lending
• “summer’s lease”
• “Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st;”
• Ow’st could be interpreted as either own or owe. This suggests that
beauty is something borrowed that eventually has to be given back.
ANALYSIS
• There is also this imagery of a growing plant.
• When in eternal lines to time thou grow'st
• The shift comes at the ninth line:
• But thy eternal summer shall not fade, which contrasts the
eternal summer with the physical, temporary summer.
A TRIVIA FACT
• Many scholars think this sonnet was addressed to a
male.