Sonnet 18 is one of the best-known of the 154 sonnets written by the English playwright and poet William Shakespeare. In the sonnet, the speaker asks whether he should compare the young man to a summer's day, but notes that the young man has qualities that surpass a summer's day.

1. Et tu,
Brut?
[Julius
Caesar]
To be or
not to be -
Hamlet
All that
glitters is not
gold
[The Merchant
of Venice]
Love looks not
with the eyes, but
with the mind,
And therefore is
wing’d Cupid
painted blind.
- A Midsummer
Night’s Dream
Hell is empty
and all the
devils are here.
[The Tempest]
William Shakespeare

4. 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 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.

5. An introduction to Shakespeare’s
Sonnets
• Some of these sonnets were written as early as
1580s, but most were written in the 1590s
• Published in 1609 (with the exception of Passionate
Pilgrim sonnets previously published in 1599)
• Most use the ELIZABETHAN FORM:
3 quatrains and a final couplet
rhyming ABAB CDCD EFEF GG

6. Themes
• Many of these poems deal with the
theme of LOVE and TIME:
LOVE outlasts TIME
POETRY outlasts both LOVE AND TIME
• Other themes: beauty, death, friendship, power
of the beloved and suffering of the lover.

7. Two groups of sonnets
154 Sonnets divided into 2 groups:
a) 126 sonnets addressed to a YOUNG, good-
looking MAN (Fair Youth)
b) 28 sonnets addressed to a mysterious DARK
LADY

8. Nobody could actually figure out that who
that man or the dark lady was!
• However, some critics have argued that the sonnets
were dedicated to a W. H., whose identity remains a
mystery, although William Herbert, the Earl of
Pembroke, is frequently suggested because
Shakespeare's First Folio (1623) [a collected edition of
his plays] was also dedicated to him.
• Moreover, the question of who the Dark Lady was, is
still an unsolved and contentious matter due to the
inadequacy of background details.

9. Sonnets to
the young man
• They form one of the
most impressive explorations
of the themes of LOVE.
• Shakespeare explores from all angles the
sentiments the young man inspires him.

10. Sonnets to the
young man
• In his sonnets Shakespeare wishes to preserve
the ETERNAL PART
of the young’s man beauty against the effects
of time.
• There is a repeated idea of
the poetry’s capacity
to IMMORTALISE.

11. Sonnet 18
• Sonnet 18 uses a typical convention of Renaissance
poems about the transience of youth and beauty.
COMPARISON with aspect of nature. Nature
imaginery dominates the poem .
To a summer’s day

12. Sonnet 18
BUT, like a real summer, the young man’s
youth won’t last long.
Turning point of the sonnet:
In the world of the poem, his beauty will
never fade.
ART will preserve the IDEA OF YOUTH.

13. 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
Should I compare you to a
summer’s day?
The youth’s beauty is more gentle
and restrained than the beauty of a
summer day.
Strong winds shake the beautiful
bud of the early summer
Summer has a deadline which is too
short
(LEASE: legal terminology)

14. Sometime too hot the eye
of heaven shines
And often is his gold
complexion dimmed
And every fair from fair
sometime decline
By chance, or nature’s
changing course
untrimmed
Sometimes the sun shines too hot
And his golden face is often
obscured
All beautiful things occasionally
become inferior in comparison
with their essential previous state
of beauty
By chance or by the
changing course of the
nature without ornaments

15. 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
But your eternal
summer shall not die
Nor shall it lose its hold on
that beauty which you so
richly possess
And you will never die
As you will live on my
enduring poetry

16. Final A pair of successive
rhyming lines, usually
of the same
length.
So long as men can
breathe, or eyes can
see
So long lives this,
and this gives life to
thee.
As long as people live and
breathe, as long as eyes
can see it
That is how long these
verses will live, celebrating
you , and continually
renewing you life.
couplet

17. Figures of speech
• SIMILE compares two different elements or ideas and allow them to remain
distinct in spite of their similarities.
Ex: “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?”
• HYPERBOLE: the use of exaggeration as a rhetorical device.
Ex: “Shall I compare the to a summer’s day?”
• ASSONANCE is the repetition of vowel sounds.
Ex: “So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.”

18. Figures of speech
• METAPHOR: the use of a word or phrase to refer to something
that isn’t, creating a direct similarity between the word or
phrase used and the thing described.
Ex: “The eye of heaven” is used to referring to the SUN.
• ALLITERATION: using several words that begin with the same
letter.
Ex: "Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer's lease hath all too short a date."

19. Figures of speech
• PERSONIFICATION: the attribution of human qualities to
objects
“his gold complexion dimmed” where HIS is used to referring
to the SUN
• REPETITION: the use of words repeatedly to reinforce an
image, idea or to convey a message
Ex: Note the repetition of certain words through the sonnet:
summer, fair, so long, thou.

20. Meter
• The meter is IAMBIC PENTAMETER which means 5 iambic feet :
ten syllable lines in which even-numbered syllables are naturally
accented
• A IAMB is a metrical foot consisting of an unaccented
syllable followed by an accented syllable.
ex: Shall I com PARE thee TO a SUM mer’s DAY?
• This beat is used as it replicates the rhythm of that human
heart and is a popular metre for love poetry.

21. Verdict
In William Shakespeare’s Sonnet 18, one gets the feeling he is
describing a love that goes beyond the temporal realm of time
and seasons.
• LINES ONE AND TWO start with a question which the
rest of the sonnet answers.
• LINES THREE THROUGH EIGHT point out a number of
negative characteristics of summer.
• LINES NINE THROUGH FOURTEEN offer a view of the
lover's many contrasts with nature.