Valentina Henriet

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 owest;
Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou growest:

So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,

So long lives this and this gives life to thee.
 An introduction to Shakespeare’s
Sonnets

• Some of these sonnets were written as early as 1580s, but

most were written in the 1590s

• Published in 1609 (with the exception of Passionate

Pilgrim sonnets previously published in 1599)

• Most use the ELIZABETHAN FORM:

3 quatrains and a final couplet
rhyming ABAB CDCD EFEF GG
 Themes

• Many of these poems deal with the

THEME OF LOVE and TIME:
LOVE outlasts TIME
POETRY outlasts both LOVE AND TIME

• Other themes: beauty, death, friendship, power

of the beloved and suffering of the lover.
 Two groups of sonnets

• 154 Sonnets divided into 2 groups:

a) 126 sonnets addressed to a YOUNG, good-

looking MAN (Fair Youth)

b) 28 sonnets addressed to a mysterious

DARK LADY
 Sonnets to the young man

• They form one of the most impressive

explorations of the themes of LOVE.

• Shakespeare explores from all angles the

sentiments the young man inspires him.
 Sonnets to the young man

• In his sonnets Shakespeare wishes to

preserve the ETERNAL PART of the young’s
man beauty against the effects of time.

• There is a repeated idea of the poetry’s

capacity to IMMORTALISE.
 Sonnet 18

• Sonnet 18 uses a typical convention of Renaissance poems about

the transience of youth and beauty.

COMPARISON with aspect of nature. Nature imaginery

dominates the poem .

To a summer’s day
 Sonnet 18

BUT, like a real summer, the young man’s

youth won’t last long.

Turning point of the sonnet:

In the world of the poem, his beauty will
never fade.

ART will preserve the IDEA OF YOUTH.

 1st quatrain
Shall I compare thee to a Should I compare you to a
summer’s day? summer’s day?

Thou art more lovely and more The youth’s beauty is more
temperate: gentle and restrained than the
beauty of a summer day.

Rough winds do shake the Strong winds shake the

darling buds of may beautiful bud of the early
summer

Summer has a deadline which is

And summer’s lease hath all too
short a date too short
(LEASE: legal terminology)
 2nd quatrain
Sometime too hot the eye of Sometimes the sun shines too
heaven shines hot

And often is his gold And his golden face is often

complexion dimmed obscured

And every fair from fair All beautiful things

sometime decline occasionally become inferior in
comparison with their
essential previous state of
beauty

By chance, or nature’s By chance or by the changing

changing course untrimmed course of the nature without
ornaments
 3 quatrain
rd

But thy eternal summer shall But your eternal summer shall
not fade not die

Nor lose possession of that fair Nor shall it lose its hold on that
thou ow’st beauty which you so richly
possess

Nor shall death brag thou And you will never die
wander’st in his shade

When in eternal lines to time As you will live on my enduring

thou grow’st poetry
 Final couplet

So long as men can breathe, or As long as people live and

eyes can see breathe, as long as eyes can see
it

So long lives this, and this gives That is how long these verses
life to thee. will live, celebrating you , and
continually renewing you life.
 Figures of speech
• SIMILE compares two different elements or ideas and allow them
to remain distinct in spite of their similarities.

Ex: “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?”

• HYPERBOLE: the use of exaggeration as a rethorical device.

Ex: “Shall I compare the to a summer’s day?”

• ASSONANCE is the repetition of vowel sounds.

Ex: “So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.”
 Figures of speech
• METAPHOR: the use of a word or phrase to refer to
something that isn’t, creating a direct similarity between the
word or phrase used and the thing described.

Ex: “The eye of heaven” is used to referring to the SUN.

• ALLITERATION: using several words that begin with the

same letter.

Ex: "Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,

And summer's lease hath all too short a date."
 Figures of speech

• PERSONIFICATION: the attribution of human qualities to

objects

“his gold complexion dimmed” where HIS is used to

referring to the SUN

• REPETITION: the use of words repeatedly to reinforce an

image, idea or to convey a message

Ex: Note the repetition of certain words through the sonnet:

summer, fair, so long, thou.
 Meter
• The meter is IAMBIC PENTAMETER which means 5 iambic
feet : ten syllable lines in which even-numbered syllables are
naturally accented

• A IAMB is a metrical foot consisting of an unaccented

syllable followed by an accented syllable.
ex: Shall I com PARE thee TO a SUM mer’s DAY?

• This beat is used as it replicates the rhythm of that human

heart and is a popular metre for love poetry.
 Final observations
In William Shakespeare’s Sonnet 18, one gets the
feeling he is describing a love that goes beyond the
temporal realm of time and seasons.

• LINES ONE AND TWO start with a question which the

rest of the sonnet answers.

• LINES THREE THROUGH EIGHT point out a number

of negative characteristics of summer.

• LINES NINE THROUGH FOURTEEN offer a view of

the lover's many contrasts with nature.