Read and analyze the following poem and answer the guide questions that follow.

SONNET 18
William Shakespeare

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,
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;
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.

Guide Questions

1. What figures of speech are used in the sonnet? What central theme ties them
together?
The figure of speech that are used in the sonnet are the Alliteration and Personification. The
central theme that ties them together is the one he loves/loved and Natural Word.

2. What are the persona’s feelings toward the person whom he addresses?
The persona’s feelings toward the person whom he addresses is deep love and affection. At first
he simply praise the beauty of the one he loves and there’s also a hint of frustration towards the
person he’s adressing.

3. What is the likely genre, or what literary period would the sonnet belong to?
The genre is most likely to be a lyric poetry. Sonnet belongs to the The Renaissance Period
(1300s–1500s).

4. What human experiences are conveyed by the poem?

The human experiences that are conveyed by the poem is that a persons beauty fade while the
beauty of the youthful nature will never fade. The speaker also said that their sonnets and the
beauty that their sonnets describe will last long after they die.

5. How do you feel about the poem? What emotions can you identify with? What ideas
do you agree/disagree with?
I felt a slight sadness aboutthe poem. The emotions that I can identify is the admiration and
affection of the author to the one he is referring. I agree with the idea that everyones beauty fades
like the summer.