The Comparisons of Sonnets

    The poet starts the sonnet by asking his lover the question “Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?”, comparing him to a summer's day in itself is delightful or very pleasing, but he then goes on to build upon the image of his lover as a perfect being by stating the faults of a summer's day compared to the beauty and excellence of his lover. He tells him of how the summer winds can be too rough and the weather can change quickly without warning compared with the temperate and calm nature of his lover, “Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May” and “Thou art more lovely and more temperate”. Shakespeare also tells how summer's end comes too soon and the sun can be too hot or go behind the clouds and all that is beautiful loses its beauty, by chance or by nature's planned out course. His lover, however, is untouched by this and his beauty is immortal, the memory of his life will not fade, nor lose the beauty that belongs to it and death will never claim him for his own.
 

     As I read this sonnet I found the personification of the Sun (lines 5 and 6) to be extremely effective in enhancing the romantic and poetic essence of the sonnet, I feel 'the eye of heaven' and 'his gold complexion' are excellent uses of language and help the sonnet to flow with more feeling. The poet’s only answer to such profound joy and beauty is to ensure that his lover be forever in human memory, saved from the ultimate oblivion that accompanies death. He achieves this through his verse, believing that, as history writes itself; his lover will become one with time as anyone who reads his words will build up their own picture of incredible beauty. Therefore fashion and changing views will never mean that his lover's beauty will never die and his words will always bring across the beauty of his lover. The last two lines reaffirms Shakespeare's hope that as long as there is breath in mankind, his poetry will too live on, and ensure the immortality of his lover's beauty, “So long as men can breathe or eyes can see, So long lives this and this gives life to thee”.