SONNET 18 (SHALL I COMPARE

THEE TO A SUMMER’S DAY?)

RHYME SCHEME: abab cdcd efef gg

PERSONIFICATION: Summer, sun and death

SUMMARY:
 Sonnet 18 praises the youthfulness and
attractiveness of a young person.
 Sonnet starts with question: “Shall I compare thee
to a summer’s day?”
 Next 11 lines devoted to such a comparison.
 Speaker answers questions: the young person is
more beautiful than summer: “more lovely and
more temperate”.
 Final question tells how beloved differs from
summer in that respect: his beauty will last
forever “Thy eternal summer shall not fade … “
and never die.
 In the couplet the speaker explains how the
beloved’s beauty will accomplish this and not
perish because, it is preserved in the poem, which
will last forever, “as long as men can breath or
eyes can see”.

1
THEME: Shakespeare promises the beautiful youth
in poem will be immortal through this poem.
Immortality the poet offers a young person is the
memory of beauty and youthfulness that will live on
through the poem.

ANALYSIS:
Title – poet uses apostrophe (when you directly
address someone). The poet asks rhetorical
question and answers it in the poem.

Lines 1-2:
 Speaker starts by asking or wondering whether to
compare his beloved with a summer’s day.
 He jumps right in, his beloved is more “lovely”
and more “temperate” than a summer’s day.
 “temperate” – evenly tempered (constant), not
overcome with passion.
 Poet suggests that his love is constant, not fickle
and moody.
 “thee” - beloved (or perhaps the readers of the
poem).
 Iambic pentameter – first two lines are bouncy:
“compare thee to a summer’s day” .
Lines 3-4:
 Speaker personifies nature, sounds like he’s
talking about a person when talking about
summer.
 Strong summer winds threaten those new flower
buds that popped up in May, and summer doesn’t
last long.

2
 The love is not rough, I.e. harsh and destructive in
the way the winds that damage the May buds are
“rough”.

3
  Personification: the wind is portrayed as having
human qualities; it is violent towards the small,
delicate buds whose vulnerability is contrasted
with the harsh destructiveness of the wind.
 Summer has a “lease”, just like person might
have on a car.
 Summer fated to end.
 Summer also fated to start again, in a sense,
summer is immortal (can’t die).

Lines 5-6:
 “Eye of heaven” – Personification of sun – sun
which shines “too hot” one day and the next hides
its warmth, beloved’s youth and beauty are not
subject to change.
 “His” – Personification of sun.
 “Complexion” – refers to skin of face.
 Lines 5-6: Personification – the sun has glaring
eyes; there is suggestion of aggressiveness, or
great passion. This contrasts with the pale image
of the sun in line 6 “dimm’d”.
 We are getting a lot more information about
summer than we are of the beloved. Summer is
carefully described with human terms, while
“thee” is only described in one line and only
relative to summer.

Line 7-8:
 Speaker declares that everything beautiful must
eventually fade away and lose its charm, either by
chance or by natural flow of time.
 “untrimm’d” – things that are beautiful eventually
lose their trimmings, decorations and thus fade
from beauty.
4
 We are prepared for the turn we’re about to see.

5
Lines 9-10:
 THE TURN!! Line 9! “But”
 Tone and direction of poem changes, moving on
from bashing summer and limitations in nature,
speaker says beloved isn’t subject to all of these
rules he has laid out.
 Speaker says that, unlike summer, his beloved’s
summer (beautiful, happy years) will never go
away, not will his beloved lose his/her beauty.
 Line 4 – summer is eternal. We notice here that
“thee” and “summer’s day” are quite similar.
 Both can fade away or, depending on how you
look at it, be eternal. Poet switches direction –
both beloved and nature are threatened by time,
only through the poem(third force) can they live
on.

Lines 11-12:
 Personification of death. Death won’t get chance
to claim beloved in valley of shadow of death,
since he/she is immortal.
 Line 12 (you’re immortal) – metaphor
 “Lines” suggest paradox – age lines of face and
lines of poetry.
 Poet making 2 claims:
 1. Poem is “eternal” – refer to timelessness of his
poem.
 2. Nourishes and develops “thee” , as it is where
he/she is able to “grow” – more and more people
read about the beloved in the poem.
 (The reader reads the poem, tries to make the
beloved grow into a character and in turn makes
him/her immortal.)

6
Lines 13-14:
 Couplet supports line 12.
 Poet successful in that poem will be continued to
be read and beloved will continue to be analyzed
for all time.
 “thee” is given life by speaker and reader. As long
as men live and can read, this poem will continue
to live and so keep “thee” alive.
 Think … is it “thee” who will be alive, or rather
poet’s very limited representation of “thee”.
 Poet refers to the victory or the poem over death.
Even when poet and the beloved are dead, they
will remain alive in the lines of this poem which
will be read by numerous generations.

7
June 2025
Sunday Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday

1 2 3 4 5 6 7

8 9 10 11 12 13 14

15 16 17 18 19 20 21

22 23 24 25 26 27 28

29 30

Notes:

8
9
July 2025
Sunday Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday
1 2 3 4 5

6 7 8 9 10 11 12

13 14 15 16 17 18 19

20 21 22 23 24 25 26

27 28 29 30 31

Notes:

10
11
August 2025
Sunday Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday
1 2

3 4 5 6 7 8 9

10 11 12 13 14 15 16

17 18 19 20 21 22 23

24 25 26 27 28 29 30

31

Notes:

12
13
September 2025
Sunday Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday
1 2 3 4 5 6

7 8 9 10 11 12 13

14 15 16 17 18 19 20

21 22 23 24 25 26 27

28 29 30

Notes:

14
15
October 2025
Sunday Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday
1 2 3 4

5 6 7 8 9 10 11

12 13 14 15 16 17 18

19 20 21 22 23 24 25

26 27 28 29 30 31

Notes:

16
17
November 2025
Sunday Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday
1

2 3 4 5 6 7 8

9 10 11 12 13 14 15

16 17 18 19 20 21 22

23 24 25 26 27 28 29

30

Notes:

18
19
December 2025
Sunday Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday
1 2 3 4 5 6

7 8 9 10 11 12 13

14 15 16 17 18 19 20

21 22 23 24 25 26 27

28 29 30 31

Notes:

20
21