William Shakespeare

(1564-1616)

William Shakespeare was an English poet and playwright. He was born in the small market town of Stratford-upon-Avon in Warwickshire. Shakespeare worked in London and held his private life at home in Stratford. Shakespeare died in the year 1616 in the town of his birth.

Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?

This is a sonnet which incorporates 14 lines. There are 3 quatrains and a rhyming couplet. The rhyme scheme of the poem is “ABAB CDCD EFEF GG” and is made up of iambic pentameter which includes five strong stresses in each line. The sonnets are broken up into octaves and sestets.

In this poem the octave is an introduction to the young man who is admired by the poet. The sestet develops the topic of the young man. The octave uses the summer season as a way of describing the young man. He describes the summer sunshine and the colourful flowers as a way of in directly describing him. I think he does this because he is afraid to show his true feelings at the start of the poem, but as we come to the sestet end he starts to reveal his true feelings for this man. He starts to talk about how his love will never fade and as long as he is breathing he will love him. This is love poem and I thing he is trying to describe love as the most beautiful thing imaginable.

“Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?”

This line is repeating the title and he uses this first line to puts emphasis the title. Would it be possible to find anything that could come even close to love?

“Thou art more lovely and more temperate”

Shakespeare is telling us that the young man is even lovelier than a summer’s day and more temperate than the summer.

“And summers lease hath all too short a date”

I think this line is trying to say that summer is too short and suggests the young man has all ...

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“Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?”

This line is repeating the title and he uses this first line to puts emphasis the title. Would it be possible to find anything that could come even close to love?

“Thou art more lovely and more temperate”

Shakespeare is telling us that the young man is even lovelier than a summer’s day and more temperate than the summer.

“And summers lease hath all too short a date”

I think this line is trying to say that summer is too short and suggests the young man has all the beauty suggested by the most beautiful of the seasons without the disadvantages unlike summer, his beauty is not subject to the extremes and always remain a fixed temperate character.

“Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines”

He is now telling us that the sun sometimes shines too hot but the boy and his love for him is just right.

“And often is his gold complexion dimmed”

I now think at this point he tries to break away from describing the boy as a summer’s day but as himself. In this line he could still be talking about the sun as ‘his gold complexion dimmed’.

“And every fair from fair sometime declines”

Sestet reinforces the difference between the young mans eternal summer and the decline of the summer into autumn and winter. The young mans beauty fade unlike seasonal beauty which is temporary and like life all good thing must come to an end.

“By chance or nature’s changing course untrimmed”

This line is telling us that his relationship was by chance or just like natures changing course untrimmed and natural.

“But thy eternal summer shall not fade”

I think he is using the eternal summer as a metaphor for the superficial love for this young man but unlike the summer it will never fade.

“Nor shall death brag thou wander’st in his shade”

This is telling us that he cannot take his love away from him because he will never stop loving him. These lines along with the last three lines show the youth’s beauty is immoral and will never fall victim to death. This line leads into the rhyming couplet which ends the poem.

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

So long lives this, and gives life to thee”

These two lines are saying that as long as he is living and breathing then his love will always be alive.

After reading and analysing this poem “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?” I believe that this is a love poem and it is about one mans love for another. Shakespeare wants this love to live forever and tries to immortalise his love in this poem. I enjoyed reading this poem as it is full of love and beautiful descriptive words.

By Conor Mc Givern