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Fatima Arriola

Professor Batty

English 102

10 December 2017

The Love That Never Faded Away:

Analysis of "Shall I compare thee to a summer's day" by William Shakespeare

Most people say that love is not a "real thing" or that it doesn't exist. There's no definite

answer to such question, but throughout the years, we have established romanticism all over the

world. We spread love everywhere with family, friends, co-workers, bosses, and acquaintances.

This might sound weird, but sometimes we share compassion with people who hate us. Love is a

word that could be understood as many things. Imagine a poem written in impractical language

that most people won't have a clue on what its trying to say. Long ago, a man was born not

knowing that he was going to have a powerful gift on writing. His name was William

Shakespeare. The man whose stories we read these day and who we admire for writing such

masterpieces including romantic, tragedy, comedy and histories plays. Shakespeare wrote a

sonnet once that became and still is famous. "Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?" is the

sonnet that most people have engaged with throughout the decades. This sonnet was written for

the entire population, but not everyone is willing to accept the role of Sonnet 18 as the last

English love poem. Most people think that this sonnet has no romanticism because there's no

proof that this poem is directly for a girl or that it was written specifically for a person. I back up

this argument by saying that Shakespeare intentionally didn't write this sonnet specifically for
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someone, but he did write this sonnet to express love and beauty by explaining how a person can

be beautiful from the inside and the outside by showing kindness to others.

Shakespeare's sonnet eighteen is of the most famous poems that contain metaphors. He

uses figurative language to dramatize the poem and uses loveliness of the words and

metaphorical language to make the poem more fascinating to the reader. The metaphors

Shakespeare uses throughout the poem describe "the traditional idea that we all live in the

seasons of man; spring has the most promise, but summer being the strongest." (Broughton,

volume 37). I believe that he creates this poem as a big metaphor, so the reader finds the work

higher end and not easy to understand, which is why Shakespeare's language is complicated.

When Shakespeare says, "But thy eternal summer shall not fade," he uses a metaphor that says

she will always be young to him, and that her glow and strength is everlasting." According to a

source from "Literary Resources" a young poet named Thomas Alan Broughton said that

William Shakespeare poem is directly for a woman, so for that particular reason, Thomas

decided to rewrite Shakespeare's sonnet in an easier way that the readers would understand it.

Thomas Alan Broughton wanted people to have a clear set of what Shakespeare sonnet is trying

to focus on. Shakespeare pays close attention to the rhyme pattern in every line, carefully

choosing the words that fit the pattern. When he mentions the word "summer," I think of a

bright, happy yellow color which makes me imagine that I'm in a happy place. The colors that

are bright and alive gives the poem a wisdom of life but also dimness which makes it look as if

the months and time is being stopped and doesn't know which side to take. This is practically

seen in the poem with the speaker not knowing what to do with the time that is sliding away. In
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this case, Shakespeare changes the season through his writing by using figurative languages that

express realism.

This sonnet that William Shakespeare wrote in iambic pentameter has a regular pattern of

stressed and unstressed syllables in a line of the poetry. There are fourteen lines in a

Shakespearean sonnet. "The first twelve lines are divided into three quatrains with four lines

each. In the three verses, the poet establishes a theme or problem and then resolves it in the final

two lines, called the couplet. There are two quatrains (groups of four lines), followed by a third

quatrain in which the tone of the poem shifts a bit which is in turn followed by a rhyming couplet

(two lines) that wraps the poem up". Shakespeare has a bizarre way of putting things, so that turn

our rhyming. The form of this sonnet is also notable for being a perfect model of the

Shakespearean sonnet form. "This poem also has the uniquely English turn of a final rhyming

verse that somewhat sums up and partially renews what came before it. In this case, the closing

lines have the feel of a cute little poem of their own, making it clear that the poet's skills were the

theme of this poem all along. Admittedly, this poem has some of the qualities of a love poem,

but this poem isn't just a poet's expression of love for someone else. These stylish elements make

us understand the language more clearly because when you first read the poem, it's very

confusing to know because you dont know if you're interpreting the same way everyone else is.

The metaphors are quite tricky, but the point of having them is to inform the reader how the poet

is trying to translate his word into our imagination. The poet is trying to make us feel what he felt

when he wrote the poem which is the most important thing that any poet wants to have with the

reader. Now that I have discussed the formalist lens of the poem, I'm moving on to the historical

context of the poem and Bibliographic of the author.

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William Shakespeare was born in 1564 in the town of Stratford-upon-Avon in

Warwickshire, England. The son of a prosperous conventional glove-maker who made

Shakespeare attend to a grammar school, but his formal education proceeded no further. In 1582,

he got married and had three children with Anne Hathaway. Around 1590 he left his family

behind and traveled to London to work as an actor and playwright. That's when his name was

getting familiar with the town, and Shakespeare eventually became the most popular playwright

in England and part owner of the Globe Theater. According to an Article from "ThoughCo."

written by Lee Jamieson stated that it wasn't until 1609 that the sonnets first appeared in print in

an unauthorized edition by Thomas Thorpe. "Most critics agree that Shakespeare's sonnets were

published without his consent because the 1609 text seems to be based on an incomplete or draft

copy of the poems. The text is riddled with errors, and some believe that certain sonnets are

unfinished". In sonnet 18 Shakespeare proves his humanist nature that is plain of the Renaissance

period. Much of the language signifies the Renaissance view of the Renaissance period. It seems

that Shakespeare is directing out how humankind is the center of the living formation with every

other thing there to serve the needs of humanity. He then describes all of the beauty of nature

that falls short of the vibrant life of humankind. This love of admiration is Shakespearean

language to the essential. Placing values on the nonliving and then escalating the levels to the

greatness and intelligence of humanity. I think Shakespeare got inspired mostly by the people. I

can tell the William Shakespeare was a very extraordinary passionate person who was a seeker

for love. All of this information about Shakespeare makes me realize and understand why he

wrote such poems with such immensely powerful words that mean so much to today world. I
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think his primary goal was to bring joy and romanticism alive since love wasn't a huge deal in

the Renaissance period.

In summary, we know how Shakespeare sonnet eighteen, became so well known. His

time was remarkably different from ours today, despite the fact we don't believe in true love

anymore. Love has died even though people make it seem like they care when they don't. The

incredible thing is that we still connect to literature poems, for example, Shakespeare sonnet

"Shall I compare thee to a summer's day," which is well known by most people. This sonnet

brings beauty to our world by the way that the words are being expressed and used. Its amazing

how something so old can relate to our generation these days and how it can make us interpret

things. Going back to the sonnet "Shall I compare thee to a summer's day," I still believe that this

poem can bring a lot of happiness to everyone because it has such an incredible message behind

of how everyone has beauty inside of them and how its never going to go away.
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Works Cited

Broughton, Thomas Alan. "Shall I Compare Thee?" The Southern Review, vol. 37, no. 3, 2001,

p.Literature

Jamieson, Lee. "What to Know About Shakespeare's Sonnets." ThoughtCo, 28 May 2017,

www.thoughtco.com/the-shakespearian-sonnet-2985265.

Mabillard, Amanda. Analysis of Shakespeare's Sonnet 18 - Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer's Day,

www.shakespeare-online.com/sonnets/18detail.html.

Gonzalez, Maxine. Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer's Day? Prezi.com, 27 Feb. 2013,

prezi.com/r5laivslb3wp/shall-i-compare-thee-to-a-summers-day/.

Shmoop Editorial Team. Sonnet 18 Form and Meter. Shmoop, Shmoop University, 11 Nov. 2008,

www.shmoop.com/sonnet-18/rhyme-form-meter.html.