Sonnet 18
Shall I Compare Thee
to a Summer’s Day
William Shakespeare
SONNET 18
SHALL I COMPARE THEE TO A SUMMER’S DAY?
William Shakespeare
PRE-READING ACTIVITY

Think of a season and think of someone you love. What features of the season
remind you of that person?
READING ACTIVITY
Poem:
Sonnet 18: Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer’s Day?
Poet:
William Shakespeare (1564 – 1616) was an English playwright, actor and
poet and is often called England’s national poet. Born in Stratford-uponAvon, England. Not much is known about his personal life He married
Anne Hathaway on November 28, 1582, in Worcester, in Canterbury
Province. He wrote 154 sonnets: the first 126 were dedicated to a young
man called W.H. and the rest to a mysterious woman who has become
known as ‘the dark lady’.
Theme:
Praise and admiration for his beloved patron.
Type:
Sonnet
Structure:
This poem is made up of fourteen lines – three quatrains and a rhyming
couplet. The rhyme scheme is abab cdcd efef gg.
1st Quatrain
2nd Quatrain
3rd Quatrain
Couplet
Lines 1 – 4 Comparison to a typical English summer’s day.
Lines 5 – 6 Comparison to the summer sun.
Lines 7 – 8 The decline of beauty.
Lines 9 – 12 Direct address to his patron.
Lines 13 -14 Epigrammatic conclusion to the poem.
DICTION:
Complete the table by finding words/phrases from the poem that match the description
in column A.
1.
COLUMN A
COLUMN B
Own words
Quote
Say that a thing/person is like
something/somebody else.
1.
2
2.
Thee
2.
3.
A pleasant and beautiful day.
3.
4.
A strong expression of admiration and
enthusiastic praise.
4.
5.
Controlled/calm/pleasant
5.
6.
The stormy winds that blow in May
6.
7.
8.
Sway the tree so severely that the buds
of the early summer are shaken off.
The period of time that summer lasts is
too short.
7.
8.
9.
The sun
9.
10.
Obscured/darkened/reduced
10.
11.
A beautiful person/thing
11.
12.
Inevitably deteriorates
12.
13.
Lasting forever
13.
14.
Lose his/her beauty
14.
15.
Possess
15.
16.
Show off/boast
16.
17.
To walk about without particular purpose.
17.
18.
Shakespeare’s poetry
18.
POEM ANALYSIS
INTRODUCTION
Shakespeare’s sonnets explore the topics such as the nature of love, sexual passion,
birth, death and time. In this particular sonnet, the speaker compares his beloved to a
summer’s day, giving different reasons why he is more beautiful than the day. His
beauty can be preserved for all time because it is protected by the poem, which time
cannot erase.
3
4
5
6
ADDITIONAL NOTES
7
8
9
10
11
12
QUESTIONS:
1.
What is the metaphor that runs throughout this poem?
2.
Match each of the ideas in the table to a quatrain in the sonnet.
Quatrain
1
2
3
3.
Summary
Nature is sometimes too severe and beauty can be destroyed.
The beloved is more beautiful and much calmer than a
summer’s day.
The beloved’s beauty will last because it has been
immortalised in the poem.
(3)
Re-organise the paraphrased lines so that each line matches its original.
Poem
Shall I compare thee to a summer’s
day?
Thou art more lovely and more
temperate:
Rough winds do not 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.
4.
(1)
Paraphrase
Rough winds shake the lovely
spring buds
So long as there are people on this
earth,
At times the sun is too hot,
And everything beautiful will
eventually love its beauty.
But your youth shall not fade,
You are more lovely and more
constant:
And summer is far too short:
Nor will death claim you for his own,
Or often goes behind the clouds;
So long will this poem live on,
making you immortal.
Shall I compare you to a summer’s
day
Because in my eternal verse you
will live forever.
By misfortune or by nature’s
planned course.
Nor will you lose the beauty that
you possess;
Do you think this is a good example of Shakespearean sonnet? Explain
your answer.
13
(14)
(5)
14