Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day

Sonnet no. 18
William Shakespeare : Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day : Sonnet No. 18

Sonnet No. 18
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 dimmed;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance, or nature’s changing course, untrimmed:
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.
-William Shakespeare
WORD-NOTES (Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day)
2. temperate moderate. 3. May part of summer. 4. date terminable period. 5. eye of heaven: sun. 6. gold complexion: golden-coloured face; dimmed: overcast by clouds. 7. fair fair woman; fair: beauty. 10. ow’st: own. 11. his shade: darkness of death. 12. eternal lines immortal verse.
PARAPHRASE (Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day)
Shall I compare you to a summer day? You are more beautiful and well-tempered than the summer day. Rough winds spoil the lovely blossoms of summer, and summer season is all too short-termed (1-4). At times the sun shines too hot and often it is overcast by clouds. And the beauty of every beautiful thing or person decays sooner or later by accident or natural decay inherent in all things (5-8).
But your eternal summer shall not fade nor be dispossessed of its beauty; nor shall death boast of possessing you, when my verses will make it eternal (9-12). So long as men can live or eyes can see, this sonnet (or more broadly this sonnet-sequence) will endure and give you an eternal lease of life (13-14).
[A] An Introductory Note (Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day)
This sonnet is entitled To His Love by F.T. Palgrave in his The Golden Treasury. It belongs to the group of sonnets which might be entitled The Growth of Love (sonnets 18-26). This group replaces the marriage and reproduction theme of the first seventeen sonnets with that of the poet’s own love for the young man who has become his friend .
The tone is one of respect, for his Friend is an important nobleman. ‘Nobleman’ meam a great deal in those days. And Shakespeare was a petty actor, one of the ‘rogues and vagabonds’ as the Law termed them. Sonnet 18 centres on the immortality-through verse theme found in 15-17. Despite the respectful and humble tone the sonnet show the poet’s confidence in his sonnet-sequence.
[B] An Analysis of the Sonnet(Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day)
The speaker’s friend is a lovely young man. He is moderate, tempered in character as compared with summer days which can be excessively hot (i.e, intemperate). Rough winds spoil the beautiful flowers of summer. At times the sun shines very brightly and often it is overcast. Moreover, summer lasts for a very short period.
In this world, everything and everyone that is beautiful eventually becomes less so or ceases to be beautiful at all owing to accident, bad luck or natural decay inherent in all things.
But the young man’s (i.e. Friend’s) youth and beauty shall never fade, nor can death touch them when the speaker’s verses will eternise them.
So long as men live and have the power to read, this sonnet written to commemorate the Friend’s youth and beauty will endure and give him an eternal lease of life.
[C] A Critical Appreciation of the Sonnet(Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day)
Sonnet 18 (beginning “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day” is one of the most famous of Shakespeare’s sonnets. Perfectly structured, it is both lyrical and dramatic The tone is one of heart-felt confidence in his love and in the power of his poetry . The sonnet is the poet’s tribute to his young and beautiful Friend who is the perfect embodiment of the Platonic conception of archetypal beauty. His beauty like the Platonic, is above change wrought by devouring Time on all earthly things. It does not decline by “chance, or nature’s changing course.” It remains untouched by death’s icy hand. And this miracle is accomplished by the poet’s verses written to commemorate this beauty.
Sonnet 18 sounds the theme of immortality assured through poetry. The anticipation of immortality for his verse, and so immortality for his Friend (love) was a common-place with the sonnet-writers of the time of Elizabeth. This immortality-through-versc theme has been dealt with in Spenser’s Amoretti, sonnets 27, 69, 75; Drayton’s Idea. sonnets 6, 44; Daniel’s Delia, sonnet 39. Shakespeare, however, borrows the eternising theme to protect the beloved against time’s ravages, not only from Petrarch but also from Roman poets, Horace and Ovid.
The poet is convinced that his sonnets in prais of his friend’s youth and beauty will endure until the end of time and give his love an eternal lease of life: “So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.”
“Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day” illustrates the poet’s high ideaism of love The young man’s love is the most precious thing in the poet’s life, and he wills to eternise the object of love in his verse. Love, in itself, is mortal.
But love as embodie in a work of art is idealized and so deathless. Artistic creation is a defier of time “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day” takes into its scope with complete felicity and grace all the main images of the group (i.e. the sonnets dealing with the growth of love, 26). The image of often spoiled spring blossoms in (‘Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May’) hints at early death or young love blighted. The rose image is deftly humanized in the phrase ‘darling buds of May’. In ‘summer’s lease hath all too short a date summer has been imaged as a lease-holder.
Summer has only a temporary and oo brief tenancy (leasehold) on nature. ‘The eye of heaven’ is a suggestive and picturesque image, evoking, as it does, the correspondence between personality and higher spheres (heaven). ‘Gold complexion’ images the sun as a person with golden face. the word ‘declines’ in “every fair from fair sometime declines” suggests the sun’s declension or setting. The image of the setting sun charges our mind with melancholy feeling.
There is the image of a lease forfeited in “lose possession,” and of ghosts wandering in the underworld in “…wander’st in his shade”. The imagery of summer, and the sun, winds and flowers, and the personification of death are all in the conventional style of sonnet-writing; it is in the handling of the convention that Shakespeare’s individual genius is seen.
“The sonnet is decisively Petrarchan notwithstanding Shakespearean rhyme-scheme. To begin with, it is rhetorically divided into octave and sestet, the change between the two parts balanced on the fulcrum of the word ‘But’ at the beginning of the ninth line” The octave (the first and second quatrains) stresses the mutability and fragility of beauty.
But there is a dramatic shift, a change of tone or point of view in the sestet (line 9-14). The sestet affirms the changelessness and deathlessness of beauty as wrought by ‘eternal lines.’
The sonnet is magnificent throughout from the perfect beauty of the opening quatrain to the sweep and rush of the triumphant final couplet. The rhythms are varied with the subtlest skill and the majestic line-“But thy eternal summer shall not fade” reverberates like a stroke on a gong.
[D] Notes & Annotations(Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day)

Lines 1-8 (Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day)
thee: refers to a young man, beautiful, brilliant and accomplished “the world’s fresh ornament.” He is perhaps the Earl of Southampton. a summer’s day: The phrase may mean, by metonymy (part for the whole) the season of summer .
2. temperate: moderate, tempered (in character) as compared with summer days which can be excessively hot (i.e. intemperate).
3. Rough winds: stormy winds. shake: spoil, destroy. darling: much loved (because a sign of spring = May). darling buds of May: “The image of often-spoiled spring blossom hints at early death or young love blighted,”
4. summer’s lease….. date: Summer has only a temporary and too brief tenancy. (leasehold) on nature. In other words, summer has too short a span of life in the cycle of seasons. lease: contract by which the owner of land, a building etc. allows another person to use it for a specified time, usually in return for rent. Here lease refes to the temporary tenancy granted to summer by nature. Nature is the owner of land and summer a tenant/lease-holder. Shakespeare often uses this legal imagery. all too short a date the summer season is all too short-termed.
5. eye of heaven: i.e. the sun, Shakespeare seems fond of this image. In King Richard the Second we have “All places that the eye of heaven visits” (1. 3. 275), “That when the searching eye of heaven is hid”(III. 2. 37).
6. his gold complexion: golden coloured face of the sun. dimmed overcast by clouds.
7. And every fair from fair: The first fair means fair (beautiful) person, the second fair means fairness, beauty. every fair…. declines: the beauty of every beautiful thing or person decays sooner or later. declines: decays/becomes less.
8. chance: accident, bad luck. nature’s changing course natural decay (inherent in all things). untrimmed: despoiled of external ornament. Mutability is the law of life and nature. Every beautiful person or object is despoiled (robbed) of external fairness either by accidents or by natural decay inherent in all things. The despoiling power of Time has been referred to here.
Lines 9-14 (Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day)
But thy eternal…. fade: The beauty of the poet’s Friend is not subject to mutability that characterizes all earthly things. It defies the effect of all-devouring time. It will never fade, because the poet will immortalise it in his poetry. The youth’s summer is not ‘eternal’ in itself but only in so far as it is caught and preserved in Shakespeare’s verses. 10. Nor lose…. ow’st: The young man can never be dispossessed of the beauty he owns once the poet eternises it in his verse. 11. Nor shall Death… shade: Death is a great braggart. It boasts that it takes all earthly things into the darkness of graves.
But this boast of death is of no avail so far as his Friend is concerned. The icy hand of death cannot touch him as it does all other humans, because verse will deprive death of its devouring power. 12. eternal lines: lines of verses which will endure until the end of time. to time thou grow’st: the young man becomes an organic part of time’s eternal span (i.e. he grows one with time). 13. men can breathe men live on earth. eyes can see: (men) can read poetry. 14. this this sonnet, or more broadly, this work of art, Shakespeare’s Sonnets. this gives life to thee this sonnet will confer immortality on his Friend.
Note: The poet’s boast that his poem would make his Friend immortal is not peculiar; it was the fashion of the Elizabethan times to boast in this way.

[E] Explanations with Comment
Explanation No. 1: (Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day)
“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 dimmed.”
These lines occur in Shakespeare’s sonnet 18 beginning ‘Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day’. They are addressed to the speaker’s (poet’s) love, a young man. beautiful, brilliant and accomplished. The young man is the perfect embodiment of ideal beauty, and a man of pleasing character. He is like a sweet, lovely day of summer. But he is more well-tempered or moderated than a summer day. The loveliness. calmness of summer pales into insignificance as compared with the young man’s. The summer season is not without blemishes. There are sometimes storms or violent winds which blow down the lovely buds of May.
Again, the summer season with all its attractive loveliness is too short-termed. The poet uses the legal image of leasehold to bring home to the reader the point of summer’s short duration. The owner of land, a garden etc. often allows another person, to use it for a specified period usually in return for rent. Likewise, Nature allows a lease (tenancy) to summer only for a very short term.
Sometimes the summer sun is too hot for one to go out. The poet here images the sun as the eye of heaven. Often dark clouds appear in the sky to cover the bright (golden-coloured tace of the) sun. The sun is here imaged as a person with golden-coloured face. But the poet’s Friend has beauty that is free from such blemishes as characterize the sun.
Comment: The extract is writ large with the poet’s sense of his Friend’s superior beauty. The images of ‘leasehold’ and ‘the eye of heaven’ bear out this sense of superior beauty. Shakespeare seems fond of the image in “eye of heaven”. He uses it twice in Richard II (I. 3. 275/III. 2. 37). The “darling buds of May” offers a suggestive, natural image. ‘May’ is conceived of as an affectionate mother. The image of often-spoiled spring blossom hints at early death or young love blighted.
• Explanation No. 2: (Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day)
“And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance, or nature’s changing course, untrimmed.”
These lines are from Shakespeare’s sonnet 18 beginning “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day.” They underline nature’s ever-changing course. Mutability is the law of human life and nature. Nothing on earth is constant like the polestar. All the objects we see around us are in a flux. The loveliness of the summer season is too short-termed. The beautiful blossoms of May fade away in a short while or are blown down by stormy winds. The beauty of a sun-bathed summer day is often spoiled by the clouds.
In this way everything and everyone that is beautiful eventually becomes less so, or ceases to be beautiful at all. And the beauty of every beautiful thing or person decays sooner or later by a stroke of external misfortune or disease (say small pox in those days), or by change which swoops upon all things in course of time. In fine, Time despoils a beauty of her beauty.
Comment: The extract sounds the melancholy strain which stems from the perception of the mutability and mortality of persons or things, however beautiful. The sense of the decay of youth and beauty owing to accidents or nature’s course of things burdens the poet’s mind with sad feelings. This melancholy note was a commonplace with the sonneteers of the time. The play on the word ‘fair’ is interesting. The first ‘fair’ is a concrete noun meaning a fair person or thing; the second ‘fair’ an abstract noun, meaning ‘beauty’.
Explanation No. 3: (Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day)
“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.”

These lines are from Shakespeare’s sonnet 18 beginning “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day.” They underline the eternising power of verse to protect the beloved against the ravages of Time. Mutability is the lot of all persons or things, however beautiful. Everything and everyone that is beautiful eventually becomes less so or ceases to be beautiful at all by accidents, disease or natural decay inherent in all things.
But mutability cannot touch the beauty of his beloved. His youth and beauty (i.e. his summer) will never come to decay as the loveliness of summer does. They are eternal, The fairness that his friend possesses will never be lost or will diminish under any circumstances. Even death which boasts that it drags all earthly things into its dark valley where ghosts wander, cannot lay its icy hand on him.
And it is the poet’s verse which will shelter the young man from mutability and death. Once immortalized in lines of verse which will endure until the end of time the young man becomes an organic part of time’s eternal span (i.e. he grows one with time). So long as men live on earth and can read poetry, this sonnet (or more broadly, Shakespeare’s Sonnets) will confer immortality on his beautiful young Friend who is “world’s fresh ornament.”
The extract reveals the poet’s strong confidence in his lines of verse and their power to secure his love and himself against the ravages of Time. This immortality-through-verse theme was a commonplace with the sonnet-writers of the time. It is treated in Spenser’s Amoretti, Sonnets 27, 69, 75; Drayton’s Idea, 6, 44; Daniel’s Delia, Sonnet 39.
Even the poet’s boast that his poem would make his Friend immortal is not peculiar, it was the fashion of the age of Shakespeare.(Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day)