Anthony Hecht in his introduction to Blakemore Evans’s edited collection of Shakespeare’s sonnets argues that ‘Sonnet 18 “[…] is decisively Petrarchan, notwithstanding its Shakespearean rhyme scheme. To begin with, it is rhetorically divided into octave and sestet, the change between the two parts balanced on the fulcrum of the word but at the beginning of the ninth line.” (See The New Cambridge Shakespeare, p.9) Shakespeare’s ‘Sonnet 18’, therefore, can be interpreted from another perspective. The first eight lines (the Petrarchan octave) offer a comparison between the beloved’s beauty and a summer’s day. Shakespeare claims that his beloved is more beautiful than a summer’s day and argues that beauty from summer and nature “declines” as time progresses. In the last six lines (the Petrarchan sestet) Shakespeare notes why and how the beloved’s beauty will remain “eternal”. Shakespeare claims that his lines are “eternal” and in his “eternal lines” the beloved’s beauty will remain unchanged in perpetuity.
Recognition of some of the literary devices enhance our appreciation of the poem. The dominant metaphor is the beloved is a "summer's day." The first two lines make an assertion, and the colon indicates that the succeeding 2 lines explain why the beloved is more "temperate"--less volatile--in that he lacks "rough winds"--a metaphor for emotional turmoil--and the beloved is also better than "summer" (usually considered a perfect time of year) because summer is only borrowed time (leased). The "eye of heaven" in line 5 is the sun, and the personification of the sun continues by giving him a "gold complexion." "Ow'st" (owns) in line 10 contrasts with "leased" in line 4, and the personification of death, by means of capitalizing it and giving it the quality to brag, becomes the antagonist over which the beloved wins out. The "grow'st" in line 12 gives the beloved more qualities of nature. Then, in the concluding couplet, the poet has the power of nature in that he can give life to his beloved through the poetry he writes.
Sonnet 18 is one of Shakespeare's most well-known and recognized pieces of poetry.
The first quatrain is a comparison of a young man to a summer's day-and the outcome is "thou art more lovely and more temperate". The young man is perfection, and outdoes even nature. The poet is unable to give adequate crdeit to all the young man is.
The second quatrain describes the conditions that will affect such perfection. Time is fleeting, and perfection is not permanent. It is hard to remain perfect where mortals are concerned. The summer is only one season in the year, and this refers to the inevitable aging that will occur.
The last quatrain suggests that through this poem, the young man will achieve immortality. The poet has written lines that will keep the young man alive in the minds of the reader. "So long lives this, and gives life to thee".
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Can you write an introduction about sonnet 18?
Shakespeare's "Sonnet 18" is predominately about the value and the lasting effects of art as compared to nature. The lover or object of the speaker's affection isn't the summer day. The speaker might be tempted to compare his object to a summer day, except that the summer day falls short in the comparison.
In short, summer days do not last, in multiple ways. The poet's object will last, because the speaker immortalizes him/her in the poem. That is what art does--lasts forever. Nature does not.
The poem concludes:
So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
So long lives this [the poem], and this gives life to thee.
That is what the poem is about.
Can you write an introduction about sonnet 18?
Do you mean Shakespeare's Sonnet 18?
SONNET 18
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 dimm'd; And every fair from fair sometime declines,By chance or nature's changing course untrimm'd;But thy eternal summer shall not fadeNor lose possession of that fair thou owest;Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st in his shade,When in eternal lines to time thou growest: So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,So long lives this and this gives life to thee.
This sonnet is one of Shakespeare's most famous ones because it is pretty easy to understand. It is a metaphor for his love or, as some have suggested, a dear friend. The "love" or "friend" is the summer day. The sonnet points out all the parts of a beautiful summer day that remind him of his love/friend.
The summer day has some negative aspects, however, whereas his love does not. His love "is more beautiful than a summer day" - and he explains why. His love is more temperate; sometimes a summer day can get too hot. Sometimes summer winds "shake" away the beautiful May buds. Finally, unlike the summer day, which has an end, the poet says that his love for his friend will live forever because this love is immortalized by the poet's verse.
There are some cool metaphors: the eye of heaven is the sun. "The eternal lines" are the poet's verse, etc. The sonnet has a rhyme scheme of abab, cdcd, efef, gg - very regular. It is written in iambic pentameter and the couplet at the end sums up the theme, that as long as there are people on earth to read the poem, his love will live on.
Can you sum up Sonnet 18?
Sonnet 18 begins with asking the lady if he shall compare her to a summer's day--sunny, bright, carefree, full of all that is an extension of spring--but then tells her why she is nothing like a summer's day. She is better--"more lovely and more temperate". She is not rough like the winds that shake the flowering buds of May, nor is she as short tempered as the summer season. She is even-tempered and lovely for a much longer period of time...possibly forever in his heart and mind. She will not even succumb to Death since he has written about her in this poem. She will indeed last--as will his love and admiration for her--as long as the lines of the poem do.
Can you sum up Sonnet 18?
This fourteen-line poem begins with a straightforward question in the first person, addressed to the object of the poet’s attention: “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?” After a direct answer, “Thou art more lovely and more temperate,” the next seven lines of the poem develop the comparison with a series of objections to a summer day. For one example, he thinks that Summer and the May winds shake the buds. In lines 7 and 8, the poet summarizes his objections to the summer day by asserting that everything that is fair will be “untrimmed,” either by chance or by a natural process. The most obvious meaning here is that everything that summer produces will become less beautiful over time. The last six lines indicate that the person about whom Shakespeare is writing, will never be forgotten or fade, because she will be immortalized in the Sonnet.