“Shall I compare thee to a Summers day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough windes do shake the darling buds of Maie,
And Sommers lease hath all too short a date:
This sonnet written by Shakespeare is to a woman he loves. In the sonnet, he describes the beauty of the woman and he debates whether or not to compare her to a summer’s day.
Shakespeare uses imagery in the poem, so that we can “see” the summer day, and understand what he is comparing to his love. The poem also uses personification to make the lover and the summer day blend into one. He not only compares his love to a summer day, he gives the summer day her characteristics
The poem opens with a question and follows with two quatrains debating whether she is as lovely as the summertime. These lines express the feelings he has for the woman and show how beautiful he thinks his lover is.
‘Shall I compare thee…?’ shows how strong Shakespeare’s feelings were for his lover. His emotions really come over through his disguised and obvious compliments and contrasts. He thinks she is beautiful and, unlike a summer’s day, her perfection will not fade, as this sonnet is written to illustrate and capture the woman’s beauty and the love he has for her.
However, he finds fault with his comparison. The summer’s day is found to be less than perfect. In lines 2,3 and 4 he compliments the woman by saying that her beauty is more perfect than the beauty of a summer’s day, as her beauty is more ‘temperate’ than an English summer. An English summer is often windy and short.
“Thou art more temperate:
Rough windes do shake the darling buds of Maie,
And Sommers lease hath all too short a date:”
With the beginning of the second quatrain, he describes how the sun in the summertime is less than perfect. He uses a metaphor to describe the sun; he calls it ‘the eye of heaven’.
Shakespeare tells of how the sun can be too hot in the summer and its light can be dimmed by clouds and overcast weather.
“Sometimes too hot the eye of Heaven shines’
And often his gold complexion dim’d,
In Line 6, he uses personification to describe the sun. Shakespeare refers to the sun as ‘he’, giving the sun human qualities. The sun’s colour and light is referred to as a ‘gold complexion’. This is also personification, as complexion is a word used to describe a humans’ skin.
Shakespeare writes that summer can be beautiful but at some point, it declines from its previous beauty and perfection.
“And faire from faire some-time declines,”
After complementing his lover by contrasting her beauty with summer’s flaws, he suggests that she is more beautiful than a summer’s day, as she will not lose her beauty or perfection.
This compliment is backed up by Shakespeare saying that her perfection and the love he has for her will live on through death and never fade, like a summer’s day does.
Shakespeare is saying in the last two lines, that, as long as people are alive, these verses will live on celebrating her beauty and the love he has for her.
“So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,
So long lives this and this gives life to thee.”
"My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun.” At first, it seems as if Shakespeare is talking about someone he definitely does not love, with all the negative comparisons. Again, the theme of this poem is love, but it looks at it from a different angle. We do know by the end, that the writer is in love with his “mistress,” but it is not quite the flowery language of the previous poem.
After reading sonnet XVIII, you would almost expect Shakespeare to find the flaws in the sun; but he fools you, and describes the greatness in the sun, which is lacking in his beloved's eyes.
First, there is a comparison, like the previous sonnet, but the comparisons leave his mistress almost insulted. “My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun; Coral is far more red, than her lips red.” While the previous sonnet compares his love to a summer day, this one gets right to the point, his mistress is nothing like the sun, or as red as coral. Her breath “reeks,” and there are no “roses in her cheeks.” We begin to wonder why he chose this woman and why he writes so badly about her. However, Shakespeare assures us that all of this does not matter. After all, he is dealing with a real person, not a goddess. Also, it is his attitude of honesty that makes his love much more real and meaningful.
While the comparisons are all negative, you get the impression that the writer is really saying his mistress does have a sweet voice, roses in her cheeks, coral lips, and is a goddess in his eyes.
The last lines of the poem read,
“And yet by heaven, I think my love as rare, As any she belied with false compare,”
Therefore, we know that he is really saying his love is rare, but he will not falsely compare her with things that she cannot possibly live up to.