Figurative Language In Shakespeare's Sonnet 18

Shakespeare: “Sonnet 18” is a love poem that the narrator praised someone he thinks that is perfect. In this sonnet, the speaker uses many figurative languages to show his admiration and immortalizes his beloved. Shakespeare begins with a rhetorical question and then he is referring and answering the question in the rest of the sonnet by listing many respects of a summer day. I think he is comparing to the summer is because he is implying the passion that the speaker has for his beloved. Also, he is confident that the people would keep reading his verse and would be forever live in people’s memory.
In addition, Shakespeare uses metaphor to compare and imply their common characteristics between two objects. For instance, in the first quatrain, Shakespeare used “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day? Thou art more lovely and more temperate:” He uses metaphor to compare that person to the summer. But he also thinks that he should not compare them because summer is often too short and too hot and it could fade away

as time goes. That person’s youth and beauty should not be go away. All those beautiful things will live within this sonnet. Her youth and beauty will lasted as long as people read this sonnet. Also, in the second quatrain, he used the metaphor “Sometimes too hot the eye of heaven shines” to depict the sun as “the eye of heaven”.
Moreover, there are some words that often have multiple meanings.

For instance, the word “temperate” in the first quatrain means the climate that is not extremely hot or extremely cold. But it also depicts constant, meaning that the speaker thinks that her lovely is happened all the time and will always be there. Also, persona is when the narrator not telling a reader anything about the situation of the speaker, the narrative, or person that the poem is spoken to. In this sonnet, we don’t know anything about the speaker’s beloved, but instead we can see the his obsession to toward whom he is described. This also show his tone of the poem. The speaker’s attitude toward his beloved is full of admiration. Even though I think this poem might be written to the one who is describing in the sonnet, but I also think that this poem is written to its readers. He wants to show the audiences how perfect she is and gives us pictures through his figurative

languages.
Because this is a shakespearean sonnet, meaning that this poem is in iambic pentameter and is composed of three quatrains and is rhyming is the pattern of abab, cdcd, efef and gg. For instance, from line nine to line fourteen:
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.
This is the pattern of efef and gg. As we can see, fade is rhyme with shade, ow’st is rhyme with grow’st, and see is rhyme with thee. Finally, I think the theme of this sonnet is immortal. People and nature will be fade away but the art and writing won’t. The sonnet begins with praising the speaker’s beloved and slowly giving images of her eternal beauty by giving comparisons to the nature. Shakespeare demonstrates that the beloved’s beauty and youth not only last forever, but also grow as time went on. He also claims that “So long as men can breathe or eyes can see”, people will always offer life and remember its beauty to whom is written in this sonnet.