Sonnet XVIII

William Shakespeare
Author’s Background
• 154 sonnets
• 1 to 126 to an unidentified young man with outstanding physical and
intellectual attributes.
• 127 through 154, he devotes most of his attention to a mysterious
“dark lady” Ref. 35, 40, 41, and 42
• the young man for an apparent liaison with the dark lady.
Quatrain 1
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:

Paraphrase:
If I compared you to a summer day
I’d have to say you are more beautiful & serene;
By comparison, summer is rough on budding life, And doesn’t last long
either.
Quatrain 2
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimmed,
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance, or nature's changing course untrimmed:

Paraphrase
At times the summer sun is too hot, And at other times clouds dim its
brilliance; Everything fair in nature becomes less fair from time, No one
can change nature or chance.
Quatrain 3
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,

Paraphrase
However, you yourself will not fade
Nor lose ownership of your fairness;
Not even death will claim you, Because
These lines I write will immortalize you:
Couplet
So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

Paraphrase
Your beauty will last as long as men breathe
And see, As long as this sonnet lives and gives you life

It is the poetry that will keep the lover alive for ever, defying
even death.
Rhyme scheme:
1st quatrain, ABAB
2nd quatrain, CDCD
3rd quatrain, EFEF
Couplet, GG
How Do I Love Thee?
by: Elizabeth Barrett
Browning
• dedicated to her husband, poet Robert Browning.
• Dominated by her possessive father, Elizabeth spent most of her time
alone in an upstairs room.
• She was a frail, sick woman who needed opium and laudanum in an
effort to cure her pain.
• Her only consolation was poetry.
“For I have none in the world who will hold me to make me live in it,
except only you - I have come back for you alone...at your voice...and
because you have use for me! I have come back to live a little for you. I
love you - I bless God for you - you are too good for me, always I knew.”
- excerpt from Elizabeth in 1846
Quatrain 1
How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of being and ideal grace.
Quatrain 2
I love thee to the level of every day’s
Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light.
I love thee freely, as men strive for right.
I love thee purely, as they turn from praise.
Quatrain 3
I love thee with the passion put to use
In my old griefs, and with my childhood’s faith.
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
With my lost saints. I love thee with the breath,
Couplet
Smiles, tears, of all my life; and, if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after death.
Guide Questions
• How would the poem be different if the opening line was "Why do I
love thee?"
• How many ways of loving does the speaker identify? Do these ways of
loving overlap, conflict, or complement one another? Explain.
• Why do you think "How do I love thee?" is such a popular love poem?
What features of the sonnet might make it more accessible or
universal than other love poetry?
• How would the poem affect readers differently if the beloved was
referred to as "you" instead of as "thee"? What if the beloved was
given a first name – Romeo, Robert, etc.?
 11 Ways of loving
• Spatial love
• Everyday
• Freely
• Purely
• Old griefs
• Childhood’s faith
• Faith
• Breath
• Smiles
• Tears
• Afterlife
 “We all "contain multitudes." And often, those
multitudes are very different from the impressions
that we give to the outside world.”
-Walt Whitman
Richard Cory
by Edwin Arlington Robinson
Lines 1-4
Whenever Richard Cory went down town,
We people on the pavement looked at him:
He was a gentleman from sole to crown,
Clean favored, and imperially slim.
Lines 5-8
And he was always quietly arrayed,
And he was always human when he talked;
But still he fluttered pulses when he said,
"Good-morning," and he glittered when he walked.
Lines 9-12
And he was rich—yes, richer than a king—
And admirably schooled in every grace:
In fine, we thought that he was everything
To make us wish that we were in his place.
Lines 13-16
So on we worked, and waited for the light,
And went without the meat, and cursed the bread;
And Richard Cory, one calm summer night,
Went home and put a bullet through his head
Analysis
• Point of view: Thirds person narrator (the people in the pavement)
• Characteristics of Richard Cory: imperially dressed, rich, handsome,
educated
• Literary type: lyric-poem—narrative poem
• Form: ABAB rhyme scheme
Guide Questions:
• Why do you think that Richard Cory killed himself? Does the poem
provide any clues? Or are you left to ponder this question without the
poem's help?
• Who do you think is encompassed in the poem's use of "we"? What's
the effect of this collective voice?
• What's up with all of the kingly metaphors in the poem? Why does the
voice of the poem focus so much on Richard Cory's regal nature?
• Why do you think that the poem ends so abruptly with Richard Cory's
death? Why doesn't the poem reflect on it at all?
• What distinctions does the poem make between our interior and
exterior lives?