Compare how love is portrayed in Sonnet 18,

Katherine Doyle

English Poetry Coursework

Compare how love is portrayed in Sonnet 18, “The Sun Rising” and “To His Coy Mistress”.

The three poems studied for this, all contain material describing love for a woman. Among this theme are other underlying messages being projected to attentive readers but the theme which will most probably be initially remarked upon or noticed by someone reading these poems for the first time will be their dedication to the female form.

Sonnet 18 by Shakespeare begins with what seems like an ode to a special person, we can assume is a women. Shakespeare uses terms such as “lovely” and “darling” in order to describe the image which he wants to portray of this particular person. These descriptions initially seem entirely complimentary towards the subject seemingly implying that she is full of love. However, the word “temperate” is also used in the same phrase as “lovely”. Temperate meaning not too hot or too cold, seems to imply that the subject being discussed is average. These too words used side by side seem to imply a contradiction within that particular phrase. The word “temperate” in this phrase could also be describing the subject’s personality as average, nothing special. This would make the phrase quite a complete description if that were the case, as we would have the physical description as “lovely” in juxtaposition with the description of the personality as perfectly ok, average, nothing special.

Shakespeare continues by stating that the summer seems to be too short with “summer’s lease hath all too short a date”. It seems that the subject is described as perfect during the summer but as in the previous phrase “Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May”, the subject is not quite as wonderful in the spring where he or she is not at peak potential as in the summertime.

The poem seems to change into a darker tone afterwards with the phrase “Sometimes too hot the eye of heaven shines” this shows us that Shakespeare seems to be thinking that even good things can become unbearable and unpleasant in excessive quantities. This contradicts his thoughts on summer seeming too short as he states that one can have too much of a good thing. He continues this sentiment with “often is his gold complexion dimm’d”, gold being one of the most precious and beautiful substances on earth has an amazing lustre. Here Shakespeare ...

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Throughout the sonnet the words “lease”, “fair” and “owe” crop up. These words seem to imply that the subject of the poem owes their beauty to something, in my opinion, the divine sun and the summer.

The last two lines of the poem, “So long as men can breathe or eyes can see, So long lives this and this gives life to thee.”, seem to imply again that the subject owes their beauty to something other than what they have been born with. The vocabulary used is somewhat uncomplementary in the way that Shakespeare uses words such as “fade”: to lose colour, “dim”: to become darker, “decline”: to become worse. These words give a sense of something beautiful and wonderful losing its beauty or seeing the inner beauty, which is not quite as lovely as the exterior.

The tone of this poem is confusing on first impressions and it is only when reading it more clearly and deciphering the contexts that we can make the assumption that this poem is in fact not entirely complimentary towards its subject which it initially seems to be on superficial impressions. The subject seems to be described as far inferior to what he or she is imagined or made out to be.

In the poem, Shakespeare uses Old English terms such as “thou art” instead of you are, “thou hast” instead of you are, “thou owest” instead of you owe, “thou wander’st” instead of you wonder. This is a particular form of “you” used when speaking to someone close.

I think that the message of this poem seems to be that people are not always what they are made out to be and may not be as beautiful in reality as they seemed to be on first impressions.

I beleive Shakespeare’s opinions within this poem could be described as slightly arrogant and unashamedly uncomplimentary. He seems to be telling this person to be wary of their appearance, as it is only skin deep.

Another interpretation of this could be that the subject is described as more wonderful than a summer’s day in many ways, and although a day will always end, your beauty will be live on forever because this poem has made you immortal by its description.

This is a more optimistic and romantic view of the poem than the interpretation discussed previously. I personally am not entirely sure whether I agree with this interpretation but I definitely think there is a large amount of content in it which is faithful to Shakespeare’s poem.

There are three district sections to this poem which can be seperated out into: “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 sometimes declines,

By chance or nature’s changing course untrimm’d;”

This section would in my opinion be section one as it is a mainly physical description. “shines”, “eye”, “gold”, “complexion”.

“But thy eternal summer shall not fade

Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest;

Nor shall Death brag thou wander’st in the shade,

When in eternal lines to time thou growest;”

This section would be the second section, it seems to discuss a darker side of the things mentioned in the first section, “wander’st in the shade”, “fade”. The word “Death” has a capital letter D at the beginning, the image of death seems to have been personalised into a human being which wanders.

“So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,

So long lives this and this gives life to thee”

This is the third and final section of the poem. It gives a sort of summary to the entire poem: as long as people can see you, you will be considered beautiful and this in itself will give life to this poem.

This poem has a typical sonnet form which means that it has 14 lines, each with 10 syllables. The rhyming pattern within it is as follows:

-abab

-cdcd

-efef

-a couplet

The last two lines are a couplet, this provides a sharp contrast to the rest of the poem which has abab rhyming patterns. This couplet at the end helps to draw the entire poem to a conclusion.

The poem is begun with the words “Shall I …?”, this is in effect a question which will be somewhat answered throughout the course of the poem. The question will not be answered immediately and this lends a feeling of suspense and anticipation to its reading. We are, throughout the poem, reading the authors thoughts, contemplating at his thought process and evolution.

In the poem “The Sun Rising”, we explore similar themes to those seem in Sonnet 18. We have a comparaison of women to nature and love to nature. We also have the process of questioning in the poem, although in “The Sun Rising”, the answer in already formulated within the question unlike in Sonnet 18 where the answer is among the rest of the poem. The construction of both these poems is extremely different.

The poem begins with the phrase “Busy old fool, unruly sun,”. “Busy” is a word which has a very explosive sound when pronounced due to the harsh tone of the B. In this phrase it seems to represent a nosy person whereas “unruly Sun” seems to represent something very strong and difficult to control.