Literary Criticism October 14, 2020

Cabahug, Ronann Jay M.

The aim of this deconstruction on the poem Sonnet 18 written by William Shakespeare is to focus
on the meaning behind the lines to show the intention of the writer on this poem and analyse the text to
the extent where you can see other meaning/s to it.

As we read the first line of the poem we can already know that the speaker in the poem is Male
Lover, which he address this poem to his beloved. The speaker compares his muse or the object of his
affection to summer/nature. But he compares the muse as she is in the poem because the poem will live
forever. The muse will live forever in the poem, but the summer’s lease hath all too short a date. And
summer and nature will fade over time. Then the speaker says “But thy eternal summer shall not fade.”
So the muse will not fade by being immortalize in “eternal lines.”

In general the binaries are life/death, mortal/eternal, mutable/immutable shining/fading. This

sonnet does allude to Heaven and eternal forms, but through the poem itself. The concluding lines sum
this up in saying that as long as there are people with eyes to read, the muse in the poem will forever,
uncorrupted and unchanged by the natural course of time.

The poem is about male lover that is captivated by his female muse in their youth. The poem tells
us how beautiful his muse is and no matter how long time passes his muse will not change as long as the
poem is alive, so is the speakers love for his muse.