Poem Guide with PDFs:

Sonnet 18 by William Shakespeare

Key Poem Information

Central Message: True beauty endures beyond physical appearance.

Speaker: William Shakespeare

Poetic Form: Shakespearean Sonnet

Themes: Aging, Beauty, Desire, Love

Emotions Evoked: Compassion, Joyfulness, Love for Him

Time Period: 16th Century

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Although William Shakespeare is best known as a playwright, he is also the poet behind 154 sonnets, which were collected for the first time in a collection in 1609. Based on the Petrarchan (or Italian) sonnet, Shakespeare’s sonnets differ from the norm by addressing not only a young woman – which was the norm in Italy – but also a young man, known throughout as the Fair Youth. 

A total of 126 of the 154 sonnets are largely taken to be addressed to the Fair Youth, which some scholars have also taken as proof of William Shakespeare’s homosexuality.

Summary

Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer’s Day? attempts to justify the speaker’s beloved’s beauty by comparing it to a summer’s day and comes to the conclusion that his beloved is better after listing some of the summer’s negative qualities.

While summer is short and occasionally too hot, his beloved has an everlasting beauty, and that will never be uncomfortable to gaze upon. This also riffs – as Sonnet 130 does – on the romantic poetry of the age, the attempt to compare a beloved to something greater than them. Although in Sonnet 130, Shakespeare is mocking the over-flowery language, in Sonnet 18, Shakespeare’s simplicity of imagery shows that that is not the case. The beloved’s beauty can coexist with summer and indeed be more pleasant, but it is not a replacement for it.

Expert Commentary

Insights by Elise Dalli

B.A. Honors Degree in English and Communications

One element of 'Sonnet 18' that's sometimes overlooked in traditional interpretations is Shakespeare's interest in sharing the power of the written word. The world is constantly changing, and he chooses to immortalize his beloved's beauty in the poem. By doing so, he's making a statement about the impact of poetry. The written word is permanent in a way that life and beauty are not.

This poem is a masterful ode to the power of love and art to transcend the limitations of time and mortality.

We transform poetry into an image/art to help readers grasp its overall tone, emotion, and essence.

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Structure and Form

Shakespeare’s ‘Sonnet 18‘ adheres to the classic Shakespearean sonnet structure. It consists of 14 lines divided into three quatrains and a concluding couplet. This structure allows for a logical progression of ideas, with the final couplet serving as a powerful resolution. The poem’s organization reflects the speaker’s evolving thoughts, moving from comparison to immortalization.

With this, the sonnet follows the typical Shakespearean rhyme scheme: ABAB CDCD EFEF GG. This pattern creates a melodious flow and emphasizes key words at the end of each line. The alternating rhymes in the quatrains build tension, while the rhyming couplet provides a satisfying conclusion. This structure enhances the poem’s musicality and reinforces its thematic development.

As for the meter, it is written in iambic pentameter. This rhythm mimics natural speech patterns, lending the poem a conversational tone despite its formal structure.

Detailed Analysis

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 dimmed,

And every fair from fair sometime declines,

By chance, or nature’s changing course untrimmed:

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.

The poem opens with the speaker putting forward a simple question: can he compare his lover to a summer’s day? Historically, the theme of summertime has always been used to evoke a certain amount of beauty, particularly in poetry. Summer has always been seen as the respite from the long, bitter winter, a growing period where the earth flourishes itself with flowers and with animals once more. Thus, to compare his lover to a summer’s day, the speaker considers their beloved to be tantamount to a rebirth and even better than summer itself.

As summer is occasionally short, too hot, and rough, summer is, in fact, not the height of beauty for this particular speaker. Instead, he attributes that quality to his beloved, whose beauty will never fade, even when ‘death brag thou waander’stin his shade‘, as he will immortalize his lover’s beauty in his verse.

So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,

So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

The immortality of love and beauty through poetry provides the speaker with his beloved’s eternal summer. Though they might die and be lost to time, the poem will survive, will be spoken of, and will live on when they do not. Thus, through the words, his beloved’s beauty will also live on.

In terms of imagery, there is not much that one can say about it. William Shakespeare’s sonnets thrive on simplicity of imagery, the polar opposite of his plays, whose imagery can sometimes be packed with meaning. Here, in this particular sonnet, the feeling of summer is evoked through references to the ‘darling buds’ of May and through the description of the sun as golden-complexioned.

It is almost ironic that we are not given a description of the lover in particular. In fact, scholars have argued that, as a love poem, the vagueness of the beloved’s description leads them to believe that it is not a love poem written to a person but a love poem about itself, a love poem about love poetry, which shall live on with the excuse of being a love poem.

The final two lines seem to corroborate this view as they move away from the description of the lover to point out the longevity of his own poem. As long as men can read and breathe, his poem shall live on, and his lover, too, will live on because he is the subject of this poem. However, opinions are divided on this topic.

Historical Background

William Shakespeare was born in 1564 in Stratford-Upon-Avon to an alderman and glover. He is widely regarded as the greatest English writer of all time and wrote 154 sonnets, two long narrative poems, and 38 plays, though recently, another play has been found and attributed to William Shakespeare. Although much is known about his life, scholars are still uncertain as to whether or not Shakespeare actually authored his works, and convincing arguments exist on both sides.

He died on his 52nd birthday after signing a will that declared that he was in ‘perfect health.’ Theories about his death include that he drank too much at a meeting with Ben Jonson, and Drayton, contemporaries of his, contracted a fever and died.

His work remains a lasting source of wonder to many filmmakers, writers, and scholars and has been recreated in other media – most noticeably Baz Luhrmann’ 2004 Romeo + Juliet. William Shakespeare’s work also has worldwide appeal and has been recreated for Japanese audiences in films such as Throne of Blood, which is based on Macbeth, though Throne of Blood eschews all the poetry and focuses simply on the story.

FAQs

Similar Poetry

Readers who enjoyed ‘Sonnet 18’ should also consider reading some other William Shakespeare poems. For example: 

• ‘Sonnet 27’ –  dwells on exhaustion and hope and how both are associated with a young man.
• ‘Sonnet 38’ – focuses on the importance of the speaker’s muse, the Fair Youth, and how integral the young man is to the poet’s writing. 
• ‘Sonnet 1‘ – this poem appeals to the Fair Youth to procreate and preserve his beauty.