Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day? (Sonnet 18)

William Shakespeare

About the AuthorWilliam Shakespeare (1564-1616)

English poet and playwright. Although he is regarded as the most significant writer of English, not much is known about Shakespeare's personal life. He married Anne Hathaway and moved from his birthplace to London, where he wrote 35 plays, many of which are believed to be the finest achievements of the English language. He also wrote 54 sonnets: the first 126 were dedicated to a young man called W.H and the rest to a mysterious woman who has become known as ‘the dark lady’

Before reading

• Think of a season and think of someone you love. What features of the season remind you of that person?

• What is a Sonnet?

Vocabulary

• Temperate: calm and controlled

• Darling buds of May: refers to the new buds that appear in May during the English spring time.

• Lease: it suggests that summer is held to a contract (a lease) that will expire when autumn appears.

• Complexion: the colour and appearance of the skin on a person’s face.

• Dimm’d: a shortening of the word dimmed which means made dull or darker.

• Declines: becomes less or worse.

Vocabulary

• Untrimm’d: a shortening of the word untrimmed which means not cut off

• Owst: a shortening of the word owest which is an old word for owe meaning to have to show something or offer something.

Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day? (Sonnet 18)

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.

Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shine 5

And often is his gold complexion dimm’d;

And every fair from fair sometime declines,

By chance, or nature’s changing course, untrimm’d;

But thy eternal summer shall not fade,

Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st 10

Nor shall death brag thou wand'rest 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.

Characteristics of the poem

• This poem is an example of a Shakespearean sonnet.

• It has all the characteristics that typify the form: it is made up of 14 lines and it has three quatrains (a group of 4 lines) and a rhyming couplet (two lines at the end)

Characteristics of the poem

• Each quatrain explores a slightly different variation on the theme of love.

• The poem’s regular rhyme scheme which helps demarcate the three quatrains and identify the rhyming couplet.

Characteristics of the poem

• Each line also makes use of an iambic pentameter which gives the sonnet a pleasant conversational rhythm.

Characteristics of the poemIambic pentameter:

Characteristics of the poem

Iambic pentameter:

Content

• Shakespeare’s sonnets explore topics such as the nature of live, sexual passion, birth, death and time.

• In this particular sonnet, the speaker compares the beloved to a summer’s day, giving different reason’s why he is more beautiful than the day.

• His beauty can be preserved for all time, because it is protected by the poem, which time cannot erase.

Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day? (Sonnet 18)

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.

Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines, 5

And often is his gold complexion dimm’d;

And every fair from fair sometime declines,

By chance, or nature’s changing course, untrimm’d;

But thy eternal summer shall not fade,

Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st, 10

Nor shall death brag thou wand'rest 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.

Content

Questions

1. What is the Metaphor that runs throughout this poem?

Questions2. Match each of the ideas in the table below to a quatrain in the sonnet.

Quatrain Summary

1 Nature is sometimes too severe and beauty can be destroyed.

2 The beloved is more beautiful and much more calmer than a summer’s day.

3 The beloved’s beauty will last because it has been immortalised in the poem.

Questions

3. Recoganise the paraphrased lines so that each line matches the original

Poem Paraphrase

a) Shall I compare thee so a summer’s day?

1) Rough winds shake the lovely spring buds

b) Thou art more lovely and more temperate:

2) So long as there are people on this earth,

c) Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,

3) At times the sun is too hot,

d) And summer’s lease hath all too short a date;

4) And everything beautiful will eventually lose it’s beauty.

Questions

3. Recoganise the paraphrased lines so that each line matches the original

Poem Paraphrase

e) Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines., 5) But your youth shall not fade,

f) And often is his gold complexion dim’d, 6) You are more lovely and more constant:

g) And every fair from fair sometime declines, 7) And summer is far too short:

h) By chance or nature’s changing course untrimm’d, 8) Nor death claim you for his own,

Questions

3. Recoganise the paraphrased lines so that each line matches the original.

Poem Paraphrase

i) But thy eternal summer shall not fade, 9) Or often goes behind the clouds,

j) Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st, 10) So long will this poem live on, making you immortal.

k) Nor shall death brag thou wander’st in his shade, 11) Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?

l) When in eternal lines to time thou grow’st 12) Because in my eternal verse you will live forever.

Questions

3. Recoganise the paraphrased lines so that each line matches the original.

Questions

4. Do you think this is a good example of a Shakespearean sonnet? Explain your answer.