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Shakespeare's Sonnet XVIII

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,
Sometimes 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.


Sonnet 18 is a brilliant and famous sonnet where Shakespeare compares his
lover's eternal beauty to the transient beauty of nature. In the first
octave Shakespeare compares his lover to a Summer's day, but, at the start
of the third quatrain there is a volta where he begins to tell his lover how
the many imperfections of a Summer's day cannot touch his lover's superior
qualities, and his life, and the memory of it, is an eternal summer, and
thus, he has metamorphosed into the standard by which true beauty can and
should be judged. The poet starts the sonnet by asking his lover the
question 'Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?' comparing him to a
summer's day in itself is a delectable plaudit but he then goes on to build
upon the image of his lover as a perfect being by stating the faults of a
summer's day compared to the beauty and excellence of his lover. He tells
him of how the summer winds can be too rough and the weather can change
quickly without warning compared with the temperate and calm nature of his
lover. Shakespeare also tells how summer's end comes too soon and the sun
can be too hot or go behind the clouds and all that is beautiful loses its
beauty, by chance or by nature's planned out course. His lover, however, is
untouched by this and his beauty is immortal, the memory of his life will
not fade, nor lose the beauty that belongs to it and death will never claim
him for his own.
 As I read this sonnet I found the personification of the Sun (lines 5 and
6) to be extremely effective in enhancing the romantic and poetic essence of
the sonnet, I feel 'the eye of heaven' and 'his gold complexion' are
excellent uses of language and help the sonnet to flow with more aura.
 The poet' s only answer to such profound joy and beauty is to ensure that
his lover be forever in human memory, saved from the ultimate oblivion that
accompanies death. He achieves this through his verse, believing that, as
history writes itself, his lover will become one with time as anyone who
reads his words will build up their own picture of incredible beauty,
therefore fashion and changing views will never mean that his lover's beauty
will never die and his words will always bring across the beauty of his
lover.  The couplet reaffirms Shakespeare's hope that as long as there is
breath in mankind, his poetry will too live on, and ensure the immortality
of his lover's beauty.

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