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Sonnet 18 line 1 analysis
Sonnet 18 line 1 analysis
Shakespeare analysis and criticism
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“Shall I compare thee to …” You can finish that sentence in your head can’t you? Whether you are a strong poetry enthusiast or not, you still probably know this famous poem. Sonnet 18 by William Shakespeare is one of the most well-known poems of all time. Time and time again this piece of art has influenced contemporary pieces. Some examples of this would be; the song “Sonnet 18” by Pink Floyd, a novel titled The Darling Buds of May by H E Bates, and a famous essay “Rough Winds Do Shake” written by Maeve Landman. Now this doesn’t not include the endless, countless list of times when Sonnet 18 has been quoted throughout history, especially in today’s media such as Star Trek, Doctor Who, and many others. It is doubtless to say that Sonnet 18 by william shakespeare is one of the most famous and well-known poems, and for good reason. This poem truly is a beautiful piece of work. William Shakespeare utilizes many things to help enhance the reading experience. Sonnet 18 by William Shakespeare draws the reader in through the use of several poetic techniques including rhyme and rhythm, personification, and metaphor. To begin with, a Shakespearean sonnet, which Sonnet 18 is, by definition is, “a sonnet consisting of three quatrains and a concluding couplet in iambic pentameter with the rhyme pattern abab cdcd efef gg (“Shakespearean”).” By knowing the definition you can now understand just how vital rhyme scheme and rhythm is in the poem. These elements are essential and form the base of the poem. Without these elements, the poem would just be known as “18” (a little humor for you). Sonnet 18 follows the strict rhyme and rhythm patterns of a Shakespearean poem. With the use of a rhyme scheme and iambic pentameter together, Shakespeare cr... ... middle of paper ... ...the reader’s or listener’s experience. Finally, the entire poem can be boiled down to one large metaphor between a summer’s day and whoever Shakespeare wrote the poem about, though the metaphor is incomplete due to the summer day failing in comparison. These are just a few of the techniques used in this poem, there are many more that make it great. William Shakespeare does an amazing job of drawing the reader in. Works Cited "Shakespearean Sonnet." Vocabulary.com. Vocabulary.com, n.d. Web. 15 Jan. 2014. . "Shakespeare Sonnet 18 - Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer's Day." Shakespeare-online.com. Amanda Mabillard, n.d. Web. 15 Jan. 2014. . "Metaphor." Vocabulary.com. Vocabulary.com, n.d. Web. 15 Jan. 2014. .
Throughout the poem I attempted to remain true to Shakespeare’s sonnet by way of word choice, while adding my own twist. My poem alternates between the more archaic (but arguably more beautiful) "thou" and the more modern "you". This is done to tie my poem, written in the present, to Shakespeare’s work of the past.
All Shakespearean sonnets have the same poetic structure. They consist of fourteen lines divided into three quatrains and a couplet. They also all contain the same rhyme scheme, which is: abab cdcd efef gg. Punctuation is also an
	First off, this sonnet follows the typical form of most Shakespearean sonnets. It has 14 lines, which the typical rhyme scheme of abab cdcd efef gg. The sonnet is also written in Iambic Pentameter. This sonnet deals with the traditional sonnet topic of love. Many sonnets throughout time have dealt with the topic of love. In this sonnet there are several examples of repetition of words within the same line.
One of the poems that William Shakespeare wrote is called “That time of year thou mayst in me behold.” It is also known as William Shakespeare’s Sonnet 73. This Sonnet is viewed as being comprised of metaphors, which capture the struggle of life. Life in which there is an end to everything but beauty within it. The speaker within this poem is one that reflects on his life and how nature is closely connected with his journey. In order to understand the theme of the poem, the reader must first recognize and understand the three major metaphors within the poem.
Shakespeare starts the sonnet by the praise of his lady friend without ostentation, but he slowly builds the image of his lady friend into that of a perfect being. Shakespeare illustrates that as history writes itself down in the books, his friend or loved lady, will become one with time. The poet's hope that as long as there is breath in mankind, his poetry too will live on. Shakespeare uses a vast amount of imagery in his sonnet. Each line adds to his feeling and thoughts through flowing visions and comparisons. “Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May, / And summer’s lease hath all too short a date.” (Kennedy and Gioia). This line down plays summer and shows the negatives of the season. Shakespeare gives the fact sharp winds attack what beautiful flowers the ground and trees put out in the spring. This asks the question; if summer is so nice and perfect, how could it do this to something so lovely as the small buds on a tree or a flower? The next line suggests summer is short and ends far to quickly for most people’s liking. Shakespeare’s love could never end like summer does. He knows there is no limit such as time to his feelings and thoughts.
Both Sonnets have different styles. Sonnet 18 is a much more traditional poem, showing the reader a picture of his muse in the most divine way. Shakespeare uses a complex metaphor of comparing his subject to the summer, but at the same time making it easy to understand. The poet goes as traditional as possible; his friend surpasses the beauty of summer, as summer will fade and turn to winter. Sonnet 130 is just as easy to understand as the former. The use of straightforward comparisons that go from line to line, instead of one metaphor elaborated through the entire poem, makes this sonnet quite different in style. Sonnet 130, in contradiction to Sonnet 18, purposefully branches off from the traditional romantic love poem for he does not describe the subject as a true beauty but as his true love.
The persona in sonnet 18 portrays the person as a beautiful girl. This is due to the fact that he compares her to a “summer’s day”. Usually, summer days are bright, warm, and filled with beauty which is typical what post people desire. As a result, the girl that he describes becomes this summer day that everyone loves and desires.
In Shakespeare’s Sonnet 18, also known as “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?” represents and discusses the love and beauty of his beloved. Also, the speaker refers to his love more sweet, temperate, and fair than all the beauty that he can see in nature. He also speaks how the sun can be dim and that nature’s beauty is random: “And often is his gold complexion dimm’d / And every fair from fair sometimes declines” (6-7). At the end of the poem the speaker explains that they beauty of the person that is being mentioned is not so short because, his love with live as long as people are still reading this sonnet. The beauty of his beloved with last longer than nature, because although nature is beautiful flowers and other things still have to die: “So long as men can breathe or eyes can see / so long lives this and this gives life to thee” (13-14) Also, the speaker is comparing his love to a summer’s day, but does not really say anything specific or that the qualities given to his beloved are more superior to a summer’s day, which can allow the reader to understand that his beloved can stay young, beautiful, and never going to die.
Poetry. When most people hear the word, they cringe and think, “Who would want to spend their time deciphering words that were written by a bunch of dead guys?” or “What a bunch of dead guys wrote has no correlation to my life, so why waste my time reading.” In the case of some poems and poets, these critics are correct. However, Shakespeare was a master of his craft. Arguably one of, if not the most famous playwright and poet in the history of the world, Shakespeare has written 154 sonnets, each portraying a powerful message. Considering the sonnets are not titled, they initially look as if they are meaningless since they are defined by a number. Nonetheless they represent much more than the number as they accurately describe obstacles that still face humanity today. Sonnet XXIX stands out because it depicts a man originally succumb to envy thus causing a depression, which is something that happens on a daily basis even today. Shakespeare utilizes expertly crafted sentences with the incorporation of unique diction paired
own writing, referring in his later sonnets self-consciously back to his verse. Generally, those sonnets I have studied rely on the iambic sonnet form. a means for Shakespeare to order his arguments – as it seems. fundamentally that all his sonnets are a means to discuss and conclude. on a question in the writer’s mind.
Shakespeare writes in the first line of “Sonnet 18”, “Shall I Compare thee to a Summer’s Day”, setting the tone for the sonnet, explaining that the beloved’s beauty is comparable to a summer’s day. The speaker then goes on to explain that summer is not as fabulous as it seems, the winds shake the buds that emerged in spring, that summer ends too quickly, and the sun can get too hot or can be covered by clouds. The speaker says that everything beautiful eventually fades by chance or by nature’s changes (Shmoop Editorial Team). The last 6 lines of this sonnet declare that his summer will never fade, death will never be able to take the beloved from him as their love lives inside the lines of this
At the time of its writing, Shakespeare's one hundred thirtieth sonnet, a highly candid, simple work, introduced a new era of poems. Shakespeare's expression of love was far different from traditional sonnets in the early 1600s, in which poets highly praised their loved ones with sweet words. Instead, Shakespeare satirizes the tradition of comparing one's beloved to the beauties of the sun. From its opening phrase "My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun", shocks the audience because it does not portray a soft, beautiful woman. Despite the negative connotations of his mistress, Shakespeare speaks a true woman and true love. The sonnet is a "how-to" guide to love.
The fourteen line sonnet is constructed by three quatrains and one couplet. With the organization of the poem, Shakespeare accomplishes to work out a different idea in each of the three quatrains as he writes the sonnet to lend itself naturally. Each of the quatrain contains a pair of images that create one universal idea in the quatrain. The poem is written in a iambic pentameter with a rhyme scheme of ABAB CDCD EFEF GG. Giving the poem a smooth rhyming transition from stanza to
In William Shakespeare’s sonnet “shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?” the audience is introduced to a poem in which he himself goes into depth about the person he is infatuated with. The author does not give any type of hints telling the audience who the poem is towards because it can be for both male and female. That’s the interesting part about William Shakespeare’s work which is to second hand guess yourself and thinking otherwise. Making you think and think rational when you read his work. The sonnet “Shall I compare thee to a summers day” is one of his most famous and published poem. Shakespeare’s tone of voice at the commence of the poem is somewhat relaxed and joyful because he is going on talking about the person he is intrigued by. Throughout the passage Metaphors, similes and imagery can all be found in the poem itself
Shakespeare addresses his first 126 sonnets to the same fair man. Sonnet 18, by far one of the most famous of Shakespeare's sonnets, was written to illustrate his love and adoration for the man. "Shall I compare thee to a summer's day? / Thou art more lovely and more temperate" (18.1-2). The first few lines of this sonnet place vivid images in the readers mind about a beautiful and sweet tempered person. Most readers be...