Sonnet 18 by William Shakespeare - Notes

Sonnet 18 by William Shakespeare - Notes

PARAPHRASE:

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?

The Poet William Shakespeare is addressing his beloved in his sonnet praising his personality in comparison with a day of the most awaited season by the people of England, the summer.

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?

Thou art more lovely and more temperate;

The poet compares his beloved, a young man, to a day in summer with a rhetorical question. Then he immediately says that he is more pleasant and gentle than the day.

Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,

He then enumerates the drawbacks or the shortcomings of the day.

(1) Sometimes harsh winds flow which affect the delicate delightful buds of May. That is the time when they are about to bloom and such winds disturb them and sometimes make them fall off from the plant.

And summer's lease hath all too short a date;

(2) Summer is the season looked forward the most by the people of England but it has a very short duration.

Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,

And often is his gold complexion dimm'd;

The poet then explains the negative points of the sun describing it as 'the eye of the heaven'.

(3) On a summer's day, sometimes, the sun is very bright and the temperature is higher than which is pleasant.

(4) Frequently the clouds form a hindrance to the golden beams of the sun, diminishing its brightness.

And every fair from fair sometime declines,

By chance

(5) No fair or beautiful object in the world remains always the same. On some point of time there is a possibility to lose its fairness or beauty.

or nature's changing course untrimm'd;

(6) And occasionally summer is longer than usual.

But thy eternal summer shall not fade,

The poet then speaks about the qualities of his beloved over the summer.

(1) Summer arrives late but leaves early whereas the life of his beloved shall not disappear gradually as summer goes away.

Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st;

(2) His beloved shall not even get deprived of the beauty which he owes.

Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st in his shade,

When in eternal lines to time thou grow'st:

(3) The most powerful thing, the death, cannot boast itself because even if it is right above him, he can leisurely walk in its shade. The reason is that his beloved will live through the lines of this poem which preserves him.

Assertion:

So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,

So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

Poems are written for the people to read. Without the existence of human beings all this would be in vain. So the poet quotes that as long as the human beings live and are able to read (because even if life is there people should not be blind) this poem will be read, by which his beloved will be getting life (in the memories of the readers). From the last lines we understand that the poet is confident that this poem of his for his beloved will be read by people until they live.

–William Shakespeare

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

1) Person's name

William Shakespeare

2) Life period

26 April 1564 - 23 April 1616 (aged 52)

3) Nationality

English

4) Designation

Playwright, poet

5) Speciality

He is 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".

6) Period in Literature

English Renaissance, Elizabethan period

7) Notable works

His works consist of about 38 plays,

154 sonnets,

two long narrative poems,

and a few other verses