Sonnet 18

The first line of Shakespeare's Sonnet 18 appears to be a question: Shall I compare thee to a summer's day? Shakespeare doesn't ask, "May I," or "Can I," or "Would you mind if I," nor in any way...

William Shakespeare's Sonnet 18, "Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer's Day?" begins with a rhetorical question that the poet nevertheless proceeds to answer. The nature of the question is a clue to...

A metaphor is a comparison that does not use the words "like" or "as." The overarching metaphor in this sonnet is that the speaker's beloved is better than the summer's day they are compared to. In...

Shakespeare wrote the following four lines in iambic pentameter. As the previous educator has explained, "iambic pentameter" refers to five metrical feet of unstressed and stressed syllables per...

In the last two lines of Shakespeare's Sonnet 18, the speaker argues that his beloved will be immortalized by the poem, that they will live on in the minds of men long after they have died. This...

The main purpose of Shakespeare's Sonnet 18 is embodied in the end couplet: So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,So long lives this and this gives life to thee. The sonneteer's purpose is...

My colleagues have answered this very well. I'd like to add a few comments.Summer traditionally represents the time in life when we are fully blooming. Spring is the virtuous youth. The metaphor he...

Shakespeare's intention when writing Sonnet 18 wasn't only to compare his friend's (or rather, his lover's) beauty to a summer's day, but to also point out that, in his eyes, the man's beauty and...

It's from Sonnet 18, and all it means is that sometimes the sun ("the eye of heaven") shines with too much heat. Here's the passage: Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines, And often is his...

I can add a couple more examples to the previous answers if it will help. Of course the entire sonnet creates the idea that all the elements of nature share human characteristics which can be...

Sonnet 18 is a poem in which the speaker praises the beloved's beauty by comparing it to a summer's day. By the second line of the poem, though, we know that the beloved's qualities far exceed the...

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...

In my mind, the theme of the Sonnet is a reverence of love or feelings of emotions from the speaker to another element. Certainly, this could be the love of the creation of art or the ability to...

I can only come up with one meaning of the word "lines," and it is that the word refers to the lines of the poem, in which the speaker immortalizes his lover's beauty. Beauty and youth eventually...

A figure of speech is a useful tool in literature, and introduces an inferred meaning into a description other than the literal interpretation. This allows for vivid descriptions and visual images...

The speaker wonders whether it would be appropriate to compare his love to a summer day, and then proceeds to outline the ways in which she actually exceeds it. First, he says that a summer day is...

When the poet asks whether he should compare his beloved to a summer's day, the word "compare" connotes observing both similarities and differences. The poet goes on to note the differences between...

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...

Shakespeare uses personification, punning, alliteration, and antithesis in this line, showing the richness of his technique. In personification, a non-human object or an abstract quality is given...

Sonnet 18 forms part of the "Fair Youth" sequence of Shakespeare's sonnets and is similar in theme to several others within this sequence (sonnets 1–126). The speaker expresses his strong feelings...

In Shakespeare's Sonnet 18 ("Shall I compare thee to a summer's day"), the poet is comparing the subject of the poem with nature. Though the summer is a beautiful time, the object of the poet's...

In this sonnet "Shall I compare thee to a summer's day" Shakespeare compares an unnamed woman to a beautiful summer day. The woman comes out favorably in the comparison because sometimes the sun...

The speaker of Shakespeare's "Sonnet 18" compares his loved one and a summer day and finds the summer day to be lacking. In the first four lines of the poem the speaker identifies three...

A critical analysis of Shakespeare's Sonnet 18 discusses everything from structure to rhetorical figure of speech word schemes. The structure is that of an English, or Shakespearean, 14 line...

There are several lines in Shakespeare's Sonnet 18 that refer to his beloved's mortality. However, Shakespeare argues in his concluding couplet that he is making his beloved immortal through his...

Let’s start with a quick review of how rhyme schemes are notated. First, we identify the final syllable in the first line of the poem, and label that sound “a”:1. Of this World's theatre in which...

Shakespeare's Sonnet 18 is ultimately about the poet's belief that his "eternal lines to time" (this poem) will allow the person he is speaking to to live forever. He claims in the final couplet...

This poem has one dominating metaphor in which the beauty of the speaker's beloved is compared to an "eternal summer." She comes out ahead, obviously, as her beauty will "never fade" while summer's...

Although the line is often cited as an example of personification, that is actually an impossibility. The reference to "death" is noting an action of the living, and since "death" is the ceasing of...

Both "Sonnet 18" and act 2, scene 2 of Romeo and Juliet contain declarations and explanations of love. Also, both employ nature-filled figurative language. However, in Romeo and Juliet, the reader...

In this line, Death is seen as an actual entity (as in the Grim Reaper), capable of emotions such as pride. So, the poet says, this entity will not be able to "brag," because the subject of the...

Shakespeare's famous Sonnet 18, "Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?" begins with a false comparison, and the poem goes on to indicate why the comparison of the beloved to a summer's day is...

The denotation, the literal meaning, of "temperate" means moderate and not excessive to one degree or another. In other words, the speaker is saying that his beloved is like the baby bear's...

There's an extensive, line-by-lne discussion of William Shakespeare's sonnet 18 at the web site given below. To answer your question quickly, though, let me say that following: The rhyme scheme is...

The volta (turn in thought) at line nine signals a change in mood between the lament in the first eight lines and the optimism expressed in the final six lines. In the first eight lines, the...

Shakespeare's "Sonnet 18" is written in the style of a Petrarchan sonnet. In a Petrarchan sonnet, the first eight lines pose a problem or a question, and the last six lines offer a solution or...

When speaking of English poetry, there are four kinds of sonnets to think about. These are the Petrarchan sonnet, the English sonnet, the Spenserian sonnet, and the Shakespearean sonnet. Sonnet...

The general idea of this sonnet is that the narrator is comparing his beloved to something that most people would argue is beautiful and amazing. That thing is a summer's day, and the narrator's...

One of the ways in which Shakespeare uses language for effect is by employing words with specific connotations. The language the speaker uses to describe the person he loves is overwhelmingly...

Shakespeare begins “Sonnet 18” with the famous question, “Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?” In doing so, he invites readers to picture a scene and to consider the nature of the inquiry for...

There are several reasons why Shakespeare is portraying the sun as inconstant in Sonnet 18. The first reasons are literal, as we see in the lines: Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines, And...

The heroic couplet is the summation of the argument presented in Sonnet 18 by Shakespeare; in its grammar and meaning it is complete: So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,/So long lives...

Personification plays a very important part in the development of this famous sonnet in the way that it allows the speaker to personify both the sun and death as he develops his argument as to why...

Concerning your question about Shakespeare's "Sonnet 18," just so you don't leave the answers to your question with a misunderstanding, the sonnet isn't arranged in two-line stanzas. A...

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...

This is hands down the most famous of Shakespeare's sonnets. The speaker compares the subject to a summer's day and points out the many trivial imperfections that a summer day might have, while...

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...

Like the summer's day the poet describes, which eventually must come to an end after only a fairly brief time, the beloved addressed in the poem is not literally immortal. He, too, has a "lease" on...

The sonnet opens with the question "Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?" The subsequent 13 lines do, in fact, compare the beloved to a summer's day; thus, the question is answered...

The theme of "Sonnet 18," although open to interpretation, is eternal beauty through verse. This is known as possibly "the" best of Shakespeare's sonnets beginning with the immortal line, "Shall I...