Easily the most famous of Shakespeare’s Sonnets, Sonnet 18 is about as clear a love letter to someone, as well as to love itself, that you can get. To understand the significance of this sonnet I think it needs to be known that Sonnets 1-17 are about a young person, and their beauty, as preserved by the poet through the first seventeen sonnets. Sonnet 18 marks the beginning of what we can kind of describe as the second act of the sonnets. Sonnets 18-126 mark the growing disdain for the poet by the young person, their involvement with the mistress, and the ultimate separation of the young person, and the poet. Show Listen to the audio version of this Sonnet Sonnet 18 (Original Text)Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day? Verse BreakdownBold = Stressed
First Quatrain; Or, The Question Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day? A
Second Quatrain; Or, The Exploration
Third Quatrain; Or, The Turn
Rhyming Couplet; Or, The Answer
Modern TranslationShall I compare you to a Summer’s day? Thought Breakdown and AnalysisShall 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 natures 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 grow’st So long as men can breathe or eyes can see So long lives this and this gives life to thee Unfamiliar LanguageThee/Thou: You Tweet Share Pin About the AuthorStageMilk Team StageMilk Team is made up of professional actors and writers from around the world. This team includes Andrew, Alex, Luke, Jake, Indiana, Patrick and more. We all work together to contribute useful articles and resources for actors at all stages in their careers. |