![shakespeare sonnet 18 shakespeare sonnet 18](https://s2.studylib.net/store/data/010235140_1-cfbeebf1e31f6de52b8141e1fc0a14fc-768x994.png)
“Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,” (line five) invokes the image of a scorching hot summer day.
![shakespeare sonnet 18 shakespeare sonnet 18](https://images.saymedia-content.com/.image/t_share/MTg0OTEwNzcyMjY1MDM1MjM5/shakespeares-sonnet-18-shall-i-compare-thee-to-a-summers-day.png)
“Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,” (line three) brings the image of rough, heavy winds destroying small, delicate, helpless newly sprouted flowers of springtime. Along with the extended metaphor running throughout the whole sonnet, Shakespeare also uses imagery. Comparing the lover’s beauty to an eternal summer, “But thy eternal summer shall not fade” (line nine) is a metaphor inside the sonnet-long extended metaphor. “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day? / Thou art more lovely and more temperate:” (lines one – two) is the immediate metaphor saying that the lover is calmer than a summer’s day. The most prominent figure of speech used in “Sonnet 18” is the extended metaphor comparing Shakespeare’s lover to a summer’s day throughout the whole sonnet. “So long as men can breathe or eyes can see, / So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.” (lines thirteen – fourteen) has the common ending couplet gg rhyme scheme for a Shakespearean sonnet. The three quatrains follow the abab cdcd efef rhyme scheme and the ending couplet has a gg rhyme scheme. Each quatrain’s idea flows smoothly to each other from introducing the rhetorical question of comparing this lover to a summer’s day to listing all the reasons summer does not compare to the lover to finally stating how the lover’s eternal beauty shall not fade and will live on forever through the sonnet. The twelve lines of iambic pentameter are delivered in the form of three quatrains. “Sonnet 18” has the traditional form for most of Shakespeare’s sonnets twelve lines of iambic pentameter followed by a rhyming couplet. By the constant reference to eternal beauty, a reader can infer that Shakespeare places beauty highly when considering a lover and that perhaps beauty is all Shakespeare considers when looking for a lover. In the ending couplet, “So long as men can breathe or eyes can see, / So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.” (lines thirteen – fourteen), Shakespeare is telling his lover that their beauty will live on through the poem as long as people are living. The third quatrain, “But thy eternal summer shall not fade / Nor 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” (lines nine – twelve), explain how the lover’s beauty will never fade and that death cannot take their beauty away because the lover owns their beauty. “Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines, And often is his gold complexion dimm’d:” (lines five – six) says how sometimes the sun is too hot but the sunshine is often dimmed, and the uncertainty of what the sun will bring is unappealing unlike the certainty of the lover’s unfading beauty. The second quatrain describes what makes summer unappealing compared to the lover.
![shakespeare sonnet 18 shakespeare sonnet 18](https://i.pinimg.com/564x/6b/d9/c5/6bd9c5c6af176bd6201414a5cc207d0f.jpg)
Shakespeare writes “Thou art more lovely and more temperate: /Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,” (lines two – three), meaning that his lover is lovelier and calmer than the rough winds of May that shake the baby flower buds. Shakespeare asks his lover “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?” (line one) and precedes to compare his lover to summer.
![shakespeare sonnet 18 shakespeare sonnet 18](https://img.youtube.com/vi/StDDD2Cbqm4/mqdefault.jpg)
Shakespeare is the speaker of “Sonnet 18”, and he is addressing his lover. Throughout the sonnet, Shakespeare is comparing his lover to a summer’s day, while coming to the conclusion that his lover is much better than summer. Beauty is a running theme in “Sonnet 18”, showing that Shakespeare places a lot on the beauty in a lover. Like most of Shakespeare’s sonnets, “Sonnet 18” is written in Shakespearean sonnet form, which is twelve lines of iambic pentameter and ending with a rhyming couplet. “Sonnet 18” written by William Shakespeare, commonly known as “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day”, is one of Shakespeare’s most famous sonnets.