SONNET 18

William Shakespeare
 Background of the Work
Shakespeare’s sonnets were composed
between 1593 and 1601, though not published until
1609. That edition, The Sonnets of Shakespeare,
consists of 154 sonnets, all written in the form of
three quatrains and a couplet that is now recognized
as Shakespearean. The sonnets fall into two groups:
sonnets 1-126, addressed to a beloved friend, a
handsome and noble young man, presumably the
author’s patron, and sonnets 127-152, to a malignant
but fascinating “Dark Lady," who the poet loves in
spite of himself. Nearly all of Shakespeare’s
sonnets examine the inevitable decay of time, and
the immortalization of beauty and love in poetry.
 Background of the Work
Shakespeare’s sonnets were composed
between 1593 and 1601, though not published until
1609. That edition, The Sonnets of Shakespeare,
consists of 154 sonnets, all written in the form of
three quatrains and a couplet that is now recognized
as Shakespearean. The sonnets fall into two groups:
sonnets 1-126, addressed to a beloved friend, a
handsome and noble young man, presumably the
author’s patron, and sonnets 127-152, to a malignant
but fascinating “Dark Lady," who the poet loves in
spite of himself. Nearly all of Shakespeare’s
sonnets examine the inevitable decay of time, and
the immortalization of beauty and love in poetry.
 Background of the Author

 an English poet and playwright, widely

regarded as the greatest writer in the
English language and the world's pre-
eminent dramatist. He is often called
England's national poet and the "Bard
of Avon". His surviving works,
including some collaborations, consist
of about 38 plays, 154 sonnets, two
long narrative poems, and several other
poems. His plays have been translated
into every major living language and
are performed more often than those of
any other playwright.
 Background of the Author
 Shakespeare was born and raised in Stratford-upon-Avon. At the
age of 18, he married Anne Hathaway, with whom he had three
children: Susanna, and twins Hamnet and Judith.
 Between 1585 and 1592, he began a successful career in London
as an actor, writer, and part owner of a playing company called the
Lord Chamberlain's Men, later known as the King's Men.
 He appears to have retired to Stratford around 1613 at age 49,
where he died three years later. Few records of Shakespeare's
private life survive, and there has been considerable speculation
about such matters as his physical appearance, sexuality, religious
beliefs, and whether the works attributed to him were written by
others.
 Background of the Author
 Shakespeare produced most of his known work between
1589 and 1613.
 His early plays were mainly comedies and histories, genres
he raised to the peak of sophistication and artistry by the end
of the 16th century.
 He then wrote mainly tragedies until about 1608, including
Hamlet, King Lear, Othello, and Macbeth, considered some
of the finest works in the English language.
 In his last phase, he wrote tragicomedies, also known as
romances, and collaborated with other playwrights.
 Background of the Author
 Many of his plays were published in editions of varying
quality and accuracy during his lifetime. In 1623, two of his
former theatrical colleagues published the First Folio, a
collected edition of his dramatic works that included all but
two of the plays now recognised as Shakespeare's.
 Shakespeare was a respected poet and playwright in his own
day, but his reputation did not rise to its present heights until
the 19th century.
 The Romantics, in particular, acclaimed Shakespeare's
genius, and the Victorians worshipped Shakespeare with a
reverence that George Bernard Shaw called "bardolatry".
 Background of the Author
 In the 20th century, his work was
repeatedly adopted and
rediscovered by new movements
in scholarship and performance.
His plays remain highly popular
today and are constantly studied,
performed and reinterpreted in
diverse cultural and political
contexts throughout the world.
 Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?

SONNET 18
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 dimmed,
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance, or nature's changing course untrimmed:
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,
So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.
Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
This question is flattering in itself as a
summer’s day is often associated with beauty.
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:

Shakespeare, however, explains that his love’s

beauty exceeds that of the summer and does
not have its tendency towards unpleasant
extremes:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer's lease hath all too short a date:

It should be noted that at the time the sonnet was

written, England had not yet adopted the Gregorian
calendar and May was considered a summer month. In
the above quote, Shakespeare describes the fragility
and short duration of summer’s beauty. The use of the
word ‘lease’ reminds us of the fact that everything
beautiful remains so for a limited time only and after a
while its beauty will be forcibly taken away.
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimmed,

Shakespeare states that the sun, which he personifies

and refers to as ‘the eye of heaven’, can be too hot or
blocked from view by the clouds unlike his ‘more
temperate’ love.
 And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance, or nature's changing course untrimmed:

The repetition of the word ‘fair’ highlights the fact

that this fate is inescapable for everything that
possesses beauty.
 “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”

Suddenly (though it was foreshadowed a bit in line 8),

the tone and direction of the poem changes dramatically.
Moving on from bashing summer and the limitations
inherent in nature, the speaker pronounces that the
beloved he’s speaking to isn’t subject to all of these
rules he’s laid out.
 “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”

Shakespeare, however, states that his love will not

lose their beauty to death or time but will be
preserved through his poetry:
So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

(As long as there are humans alive on this planet

Your life and beauty will live on through this sonnet)
Shakespeare’s self-assured claim makes it possible
to argue that the purpose of the poem was not
actually to pay a beloved person a compliment but
rather to praise oneself for poetic skill.
 Speaker:

The Author
 Addressee:

The young man

 Tone:

Endearing, deep
devotion for a lover
 Symbolism:
• “The darling buds of May” –
the beautiful, much loved buds
of the early summer

• “The eye of heaven” – Sun

 Figure of Speech
Metaphor:
“Shall I compare thee to a
summer’s day?”
 Figure of Speech
Metaphor:
"Thou art more lovely and more
temperate”
 Figure of Speech
Personification:
“Rough winds do shake the
darling buds of May”
“Sometime too hot the eye of
heaven shines“
 Figure of Speech
Personification:

“Nor shall death brag thou

wander’st in his shade”
 Figure of Speech
Anaphora:
“So long as men can breathe, or
eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life
to thee.”
 STRUCTURE
Iambic pentameter
the most common metrical pattern in poetry
written in English, alternates weak unstressed and
strong stressed syllables to make a ten-syllable line
(weak strong/weak strong/weak strong/weak
strong/weak strong).
 Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?

SONNET 18
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 dimmed,
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance, or nature's changing course untrimmed:
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,
So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.
 THEMES
 Love
 Literature and Writing
 Time
 Man and the Natural World
TITLE IMPLICATION
 Shakespeare's sonnets are a collection of
154 sonnets, dealing with themes such as the
passage of time, love, beauty and mortality, first
published in a 1609 quarto entitled SHAKE-
SPEARES SONNETS.
 Never before imprinted. (although
sonnets 138 and144 had previously been published
in the 1599 miscellany The Passionate Pilgrim).
 The quarto ends with "A Lover's Complaint", a
narrative poem of 47 seven-line stanzas written
in rhyme royal.