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Sonnet 18
Shakespeare's "Sonnet 18," one of the most widely-read and quoted, is part of a series of sonnets whose subject is known as the "Fair Youth," an as-yet unidentified young man whom several scholars...
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Sonnet 18
Shakespeare describes the qualities of his beloved by comparing the person to the qualities of summer. However, the overall message is that his beloved is far better than summer, and his greatness...
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Sonnet 18
To “dispraise” is to criticize something or to speak negatively about it. "Sonnet 18" is a love poem meant to flatter and declare the author’s love to the subject. Shakespeare praises the...
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Sonnet 18
Sonnet 18 begins with one of the most famous opening lines in all of Shakespeare’s sonnets: “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?” In literary terms, this is a device known as a...
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Sonnet 18
Scholars believe that William Shakespeare wrote his 154 sonnets between 1592 and 1598. It's generally accepted that Sonnets 1-126 are addressed to a young man known as the "Fair Youth." In Sonnets...
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Sonnet 18
This an interesting question, as the poems would seem to have more points of contrast than of comparison. Nevertheless, some commonalities are as follows: Both poems are sonnets, and both focus on...
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Sonnet 18
In Sonnet 18, the speaker describes how the person he addresses is more sweet, temperate and fair than the beauty he sees in nature. He even notes how the sun is sometimes dim and how nature’s...
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Sonnet 18
Although it is the critical consensus, based on reading Shakespeare's sonnets as a narrative, that the addressee of Sonnet XVIII is "the fair youth," many readers assume that it is addressed to a...
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Sonnet 18
The poet expresses his adoration for his muse in an interesting way in this sonnet. He evokes the common language and comparisons of court poetry, only to suggest that they are actually inadequate...
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Sonnet 18
William Shakespeare's "Sonnet 18" is an English or Elizabethan sonnet; as such, it is written in iambic pentameter and contains fourteen lines comprised of three quatrains with a rhymed couplet at...
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Sonnet 18
In this sonnet, Shakespeare turns on its head the convention of calling one's beloved as beautiful as a summer day: the speaker here says instead that his beloved is more beautiful than a summer's...
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Sonnet 18
A traditional love sonnet of Shakespeare's period would compare a woman to a summer's day, but in a way that used features of summer—roses in bloom, birds singing, and a bright, warm sun—to...
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Sonnet 18
The speaker teasingly wonders out loud if he should compare his beloved to a summer's day. He has no intention of doing so, of course; he's gently toying with his lover. He then proceeds, much to...
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Sonnet 18
By opening the poem with a rhetorical question, the speaker is almost teasing his lover. He seems to be saying "Shall I compare thee to a summer's day? Maybe I should, but then again, maybe I...
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Sonnet 18
The ninth line of a sonnet is traditionally what's called a volta, or turn. In the previous eight lines—the octet—the poet presents us with a problem, which is then solved in the following six...
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Sonnet 18
First, the speaker says of his beloved that she is more lovely and more "temperate" than a summer's day. Temperate can mean the use of restraint. The speaker then goes on to say that the sun can be...
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Sonnet 18
You could argue that the argument for the immortality of the loved one is flawed because the narrator of the poem immortalizes his love for the subject of the sonnet but not the subject herself....
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Sonnet 18
A conceit is a type of metaphor which is often extended throughout several lines, or even an entire poem. In this poem, the central conceit which ties the poem together is the presentation of the...
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Sonnet 18
Like most Shakespearean sonnets, Sonnet 18 consists of 14 lines of iambic pentameter, with a rhyme scheme of abab cdcd efef gg. The poem is composed of three quatrains and a final couplet. Many of...
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Sonnet 18
The main metaphor in the poem is the comparison of the speaker’s love to a summer day. In the first line, the speaker notes that he is going to compare someone to a “summer’s day.” This...
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Sonnet 18
The general theme of the sonnet is that what is written about in poetry is eternal - specifically in this poem, Shakespeare is admiring a woman, and saying that her beauty will never fade because...
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Sonnet 18
The power of Sonnet 18 is how it uses the imagery of the natural world to help establish the feeling of love the speaker holds. The opening line helps to establish a mood that creates a...
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Sonnet 18
The speaker is successful in immortalizing his beloved. Part of this success is showing how his beloved is more "lovely" than a summer's day. Summer is too erratic, whereas his beloved is more...
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Sonnet 18
In Sonnet XVIII by William Shakespeare, the use of "eye of heaven" is a figure of speech known as metonymy, the substitution of something closely related for the thing actually meant. With the sun...
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Sonnet 18
The subtle reference to grafting occurs in line 12 of Shakespeare's Sonnet 18: When in eternal lines to time thou growest: The specific words relevant to grafting are "in ... lines to time thou...
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Sonnet 18
In Sonnet 18, the speaker compares his beloved to a summer's day and then elaborates on how his beloved is superior to it. His first response to the comparison is to say of his beloved, "Thou art...
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Sonnet 18
If this were my assignment, I would compare Shakespeare's Sonnet 18 ("Shall I compare thee to a summer's day") to Romeo and Juliet, also by Shakespeare. I will give you a few ideas to consider if...
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Sonnet 18
This is one of many of Shakespeare's sonnets that is in praise of the speaker's love. The speaker starts off with a question, which gives the sonnet its title, and then it is followed by a series...
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Sonnet 18
Well, to paraphrase something means to "express the same message in different words," so that is what I will try to do: I'd compare you to a summer's day, but you are prettier and more pleasant....
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Sonnet 18
Shakespeare evidently believed that his poetry was so great that it would be immortal. He has been right so far. His works are still being read after over four hundred years. In a number of his...
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Sonnet 18
Two lines in Wiliam Shakespeare's Sonnet 18 are clearly about the sun: Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,And oft' is his gold complexion dimm'd; In the second of these two lines, of...
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Sonnet 18
The speaker compares his beloved to a summer's day. The summer's day has the downside of lasting only a short time. As he says, the "summer's lease hath all too short a date." This is the key to...
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Sonnet 18
Unlike the majority of Shakespeare's sonnets, Sonnet XVIII is written in the Petrarchan form. That is, it is composed of an octave that presents an argument, while the sestet proposes an answer....
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Sonnet 18
When Shakespeare argues that his beloved is more lovely than a summer's day in Sonnet 18, one thing he is thinking of is how short lived summer is. He points out that "summer's lease hath all too...
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Sonnet 18
During the Renaissance, English poets adapted the Petrarchan sonnet, originated by Italian poet Petrarch, to suit English tastes, language, and ideas. There were several changes from the...
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Sonnet 18
In this line, "Death" is being used primarily as personification. Personification is the granting of human thoughts and feelings to non-human things or ideas. Here, death is given the...
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Sonnet 18
Shakespeare's sonnet begins with a very straightforward question: "Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?" Then, there is a straightforward answer: "Thou art more lovely and more temperate."...
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Sonnet 18
As I understand it, what the speaker means is that the object of the poem ("thou") will come to be one with time because these lines (the poem) are eternal. So what he is saying is that the object...
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Sonnet 18
The theme of Shakespeare's sonnet #18 is similar to that of many of his other sonnets. The gist of it is that he is making his loved one immortal because he is confident that his own poetry is...
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Sonnet 18
Simply put, the speaker's beloved is eternal because the poetry the speaker writes will live on forever after his lover dies. In the last four lines of "Sonnet 18," the speaker states, Nor shall...
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Sonnet 18
This is a love poem but it is also about the power of poetry itself. The speaker compares his beloved to a summer’s day and makes the case that she is more fair, lovely and more timeless. It is...
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Sonnet 18
There are at least couple of different images that the author uses to show that summer weather is unpredictable in the lines that you cite. First, he uses the image of buds being shaken from a...
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Sonnet 18
Shakespeare wrote a number of sonnets in which he affirmed that the person being addressed would be immortalized in the fourteen lines of poetry because his poetry was immortal. Sonnet 18 is an...
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Sonnet 18
First let me talk about its structure. Even if you are not a fan of poetry or Shakespeare, you can admire the craftsmanship with which he wrote his sonnets. Because it is a sonnet, it is a 14 line...
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Sonnet 18
The poet says that everything in nature becomes less beautiful, if not by chance (accidents of fate) then by time. But the person he writes of will be beautiful forever: "But thy eternal summer...
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Sonnet 18
In Sonnet XVIII, Death is personified much like the Grim Reaper who comes for the beloved, desiring to claim her in "his shade"; this shade is an allusion to the valley of the shadow of death...
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Sonnet 18
In William Shakespeare’s Sonnet 18 and Sonnet 130, the speakers praise the beauty of their lovers through abundant metaphors and figurative imagery that uphold the theme of appearance. In Sonnet...
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Sonnet 18
The speaker wants to think about comparing his love to a summer's day. But he says she is more beautiful and more moderate than that. That's because there are strong winds and because summer...
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Sonnet 18
A Shakespearean sonnet is made up of three quatrains (a quatrain is a group of 4 lines of poetry) followed by a couplet (2 lines of poetry that rhyme). The rhyme scheme of the sonnet is ABAB CDCD...
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Sonnet 18
In Sonnet 18 Shakespeare says that comparing his love to a summer's day is a bit pointless. Why? In a nut shell because summer will eventually fade away and come to an end. Shakespeare writes...