Sonnet 18 Figurative Language

William Shakespeare’s “Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer’s Day” (“Sonnet 18”) deals with the poet’s view of beauty as it applies to his loved one. The speaker, Shakespeare, starts the first quatrain with a question, asking if he should compare the woman he admires to a summer’s day. In the second quatrain, he goes on to describe the negative aspects of the summer, telling the readers how the season is “too hot” and how it lasts only for a season. By the third quatrain, the poet resolves his opening question in the first line and decides that his lover’s beauty is an “eternal summer [that] shall not fade.” Finally, the speaker concludes his thoughts in the couplet when he writes how “this”—the sonnet—will forever give life to the person Shakespeare

Readers see this in the second quatrain when Shakespeare personifies the sun, calling it “the eye of heaven” with “his gold complexion.” Giving the sun a human quality degrades what readers normally consider as the powerful, ultra-violet sun that rests in outer space, untouchable and unreachable. This helps introduce Shakespeare’s theme and his ultimate contrast in the third quatrain, where he tells of his beloved’s lasting beauty. The readers also find another example of personification in line 11 when Shakespeare writes, “Nor shall Death brag thou wander’st in his shade.” Here, the poet evokes the idea of death as like a grim reaper who meanders around his “shade”— hell—and boasts of those who die and find themselves in Death’s company. Once more, Shakespeare equates death to a human being to show that his loved one transcends all living creatures or acts of nature. She is the ideal figure not only in the poet’s eyes, but in all others who will eventually read about her in “this” poem. Therefore, the poet’s use of figurative language makes the subject of “Sonnet 18” a superior being, a goddess whose beauty forever shines in our minds and whose power can conquer death