Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer's Day? [Sonnet no. 18]- Shakespeare, An Analysis

Hello Friends...

Sure, we all are doing well... Be careful, we must stay fit and shouldn't fall ill and get our studies affected. We shall eat and drink healthy, exercise regularly, and won't avoid our domestic and social responsibilities. And whatever time we get for ourselves at the end of the day, we must study hard for most of the time, so that we learn to think... and learn. We simply cannot afford to stop thinking, for we are learners, and we are the chosen ones who got the scope to learn... 

Let's learn to think first... 

Who May Benefit from the Discussion

Though it is primarily meant for the students of Class XII, WBCHSE, any student, from any level, studying the poem independently may find the discussion helpful. Moreover, those who are poem-lovers, and read poems for the sake of the pleasure of reading poetry are likely to find this platform a scope to get engaged in meaningful exchanges of ideas with others.

Your Previous Exposure to Shakespeare

If you are a student of Class XII, WBCHSE, then while being in Class XI, you all have tasted the flavour of Shakespeare's mastery as a story teller. Did you go beyond the abridged tales of his famous plays and read the original texts? You may try, at least, to appreciate Shakespeare as a playwright, and not just as a mere story-teller. 

Some among you might also have got the chance to read some other text(s) by Shakespeare, maybe poem(s), or drama(s), or both. Even if this is your first exposure to Shakespeare, you need not worry at all. I am hopeful that this discussion will make you interested enough to find some more works of Shakespeare.

Shakespearean Sonnet

Now, you are going to read a famous sonnet composed by Shakespeare from one of his sonnet-sequences. 

Sonnet-sequence

What is meant by a sonnet-sequence? 

A Sonnet-sequences is a collection of sonnets addressed to a particular person. 

Do you know that Shakespeare, the master playwright is also renowned as the 'Bard of Avon'? That is to say, he was not only a successful playwright/dramatist, but also a very popular poet.

Would you mind searching for the meaning of the word 'bard' on the internet, if you are not sure about its meaning?

Petrarchan Sonnets

It is already known to you all that the art of writing sonnets started with Petrarch in Italy, who used to divide his sonnets into an octave [stanza consisting of eight lines] and a sestet [stanza consisting of six lines], and then this particular structure of writing sonnets was adopted by the poets from other countries. 

English Sonnets

Composing sonnets in English is believed to have started with poets like Wyatt, Howard, Sydney et al. But they mostly followed the tradition as set by Petrarch. Shakespeare was the first who set a different tradition of composing sonnets in English, breaking away from the convention of octaves and sestets, giving English sonnets a new form and style of its own. See, if you can spot the uniqueness of Shakespearean sonnets on your own, if you are already acquainted with the features and traits of Petrarchan sonnets. 

Now, it's time to go through the poem. Take a deep breathe, focus, and go: 

Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer's Day? 

[Sonnet no. 18] 

William Shakespeare

Shall I compare thee[1] to a summer’s day? 

Thou[2]  art[3] more lovely[4]  and more temperate[5]: 

Rough winds[6] do shake the darling[7] buds of May, 

And summer’s lease[8] hath[9] all too short a date[10]: 

Sometime too hot the eye of heaven[11] shines, 

And often is his gold complexion dimm’d[12]; 

And every fair[13] from fair[14] sometime declines[15], 

By chance[16] or nature’s changing course untrimm’d[17]; 

But thy[18] eternal[19] summer[20] shall not fade[21] 

Nor lose possession of that fair[22] thou owest[23]; 

Nor shall Death brag[24] thou wander’st[25] in his shade[26], 

When in eternal[27] lines to time thou growest[28]: 

So long as men can breathe or eyes can see, 

So long lives this, and this gives life to thee. 

Vocabulary

Maybe, your first attempt to read the text did not go very well, if this is your first time with Shakespeare. You must have come across many difficult words and phrases not known to you. Haven't you?

Well, I do admit that here you have a range of archaic expressions [Old English expressions that are used no more nowadays, I've underlined them in the text for you specially] which may have sounded difficult for you. But you need not worry, for I have a gloss for you. Please do check out if I have guessed your difficulties rightly or not. Ensure you check the list well, for several times in the poem, we have the same word being used to mean differently: 

1. you 

2. you 

3. are 

4. beautiful 

5. balanced 

6. storm 

7. delicate, dear 

8. span, period 

9. has 

10. very little time 

11. sun 

12. compromised 

13. beautiful object 

14. state of beauty 

15. falls back 

16. accident 

17. unchanged 

18. your 

19. permanent 

20. beauty 

21. decrease 

22. beauty 

23. have 

24. boast 

25. wander, move around 

26. place 

27. permanent 

28. grow 

Listening for a Better Comprehension

Did the glossary help? Alright, let me help you a bit more. I have chosen a splendid enactment of the sonnet produced by BBC. Please note the passion and aspiration of the lover poet as Lorna Laidlaw plays his role. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=05waZXoMUcg

Did the listening help? Then... why don't we compare our understanding of the poem now? 

The Beginning

The poem begins with an interrogation: 

Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day? 

And this conveys a lot. Have you noted them? 

First, we have a speaker, and obviously the way the question is asked, we sense a supposed listener too.  Don't we?

Dramatic Elements

So, we have characters in the poem who are interacting together. Can we say that the poem begins dramatically, or, that the poem has got some dramatic elements like 'characters' [the speaker and the supposed listener] and 'action' [the conversation]? 

Do you feel that the playwright Shakespeare is influencing the poet Shakespeare? Did you feel the reverse to be true when [if] you were going through the dramatic compositions of Shakespeare after reading at least some poems by him?

Well, it's quite natural, isn't it? If you are a fan of cricket, you'll often find yourself using expressions from the domain of cricket while having a conversation on some topic other than cricket. Yes, because that's a cricket fan talking who looks at the whole world through his passion for cricket...

A Rhetorical Question?

By the way, do you feel, in any way, that the question is not a real query, but a rhetorical question? Do you know what is a rhetorical question? If you ask a question only to point out the answer, you are basically asking a rhetorical question.

The Response

The response comes quick in the very next line of the poem. 

Thou art more lovely and more temperate: 

Does the line affirm the superiority of the beauty of the addresses person? 

Then we must conclude, the question that begins the poem is rhetorical. The question in the first line is asked only to point out the futility/meaninglessness of the attempt to compare the beauty of the addressed person with the beauty of a summer's day. 

Further Elaboration

The Darling Buds

The colon at the end of the second line hints at an explanation following, and a detailed explanation follows in the lines that come next to highlight the inferiority of a summer’s day in contrast to the well balanced beauty of the person addressed in the poem. The flowers that bloom in the month of May are beautiful no doubt, but, at the same time, are prone/susceptible to get withered by the occasional rough winds that blow during the period. 

Is that the only aspect where summer's beauty loses a point?

Certainly not. There are more...

What are they?

Other Elements of the Season

Yes, not only the flowers, even the season of sweet summer itself turns to be very temporary and inconsistent. Sometimes the Sun is found to be too hot to bear, and sometimes it gets covered with the cloud in the sky. However, isn't this the law of the Nature, that everything comes temporary, instead of being permanent?

Why Summer?

Now, at this juncture, maybe you are curious to know what makes the poet feel that the season of summer is beautiful at all. You need to remember that England is not a tropical country like ours, and there, summer is actually more or less a pleasant season, much different from the hot and sultry Indian summer. You may recall the pleasure of the few days of spring season here, if at all you can mark them out, to understand and appreciate their feelings about the summer days. 

The Turn

Ninth line onward, the argumentation gets a twist. Have you already noted that? No beauty is permanent in this world. Still the beauty of the person addressed marks an exception. It will never fade, and it will never lose its charm. Rather it will grow into eternity to defy the claws of death. 

The Final Couplet

But how such an exceptional phenomenon can be achieved? The poet answers the riddle in the final couplet. 

Readers are going to enjoy his poem for time eternal and will come to know about the exceptional beauty of his beloved, the person addressed to in the poem; and thus, his beloved is going to achieve permanence in the mind of his readers till the human civilization comes to an end. Tricky, isn't it? 

I would rather say it's quite an ambition... But, are we not still reading this poem, and discussing the beauty of his beloved, thus enlivening the person in our minds?

By the way, I am hopeful that you haven't missed the use of 'this', occurring twice in the last line. To be sure, they refer to the same object,- this poem, isn't it? But don't you feel the way they are placed in the sentence, also help us to say them with additional stress/intensity/volume, and thereby foreground/emphasise the importance of the poem in turning the beauty of the addressee to an object of permanency?

The Controversy

It is very likely that you have already come across the controversy regarding the real identity of the poet's beloved somewhere else. Now, you may just research on your own to know about the topic a bit further, if you are interested. If you don't feel, you need not, for that is no way going to affect your understanding of the poem. The poem may bear some autobiographical elements, but it is never the autobiography of the poet. You are even free to appreciate the urge of the lover poet to turn his love immortal even by comparing it to any similar urge of your own, if you have felt any at any point of time. 

The Title

It's time to wind up, for we have been discussing for long. Before we conclude, we must discuss a few things about the title and the structure of the poem. 

Have you noted that here we have the poem numbered? 

We have this because it is customary to number the sonnets in a sonnet sequence. Now you can very easily make it out that this very poem is the eighteenth poem in the Shakespearean sonnet-sequence dedicated to W.H. And in a sonnet-sequence, as all the sonnets are addressed to a particular person, the sonnets are not given titles individually, as is the custom with other poems and individual sonnets which are not a part of any sequence. 

Apart from being referred to by the sequence number, sonnets that are part of a sequence are also referred to by their first line. That is the reason you find such an unusual title 'Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer's Day?' for the sonnet. 

The Structure

Essential Division

The structure of the poem is typical of Shakespeare’s sonnets, with the rhyme scheme of 'abab cdcd efef gg'. The fourteen lined poem can be essentially divided into an eight lined [octave] and a six lined [sestet] part as we find the argumentation turning a twist at the beginning of the ninth line. 

Structural Division

However, the sonnet is structurally divided into three quatrains [four-lines stanzas] followed by the final rhymed couplet [two-lined stanza], where we find a steep dramatic turn typical to Shakespeare himself. 

Rhyme Scheme

Well, do you feel confused about this rhyme scheme referred to in the discussion earlier?

It's very easy to find the rhyme scheme of any poem. We refer to the scheme/plan with alphabets starting from 'a' and continue. So, the pronunciation of the last word of the first line of any poem is always marked with 'a':

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

Now, if we have any line in the poem ending with words that rhyme with the final word of the first line, we mark that with 'a'. Shall we try to do this with the first stanza together?

Yes, the third line ends with 'May' that rhymes with 'day' from the first line. So we mark 'May' in the third line with 'a' as well: 

 

Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May, a

But we cannot skip the second line, can we? 

Since the second line ends with 'temperate', and it doesn't rhyme with 'a' [the last word of the first line], we mark/index it with the next alphabet 'b'. Yes, whenever we come across a word with a new pattern of pronunciation, we mark with the English alphabet next to the previously used one:

Thou  art more lovely  and more temperate: b

Do we have any line in the stanza that ends with a word rhyming with 'b'? Yes, the fourth line ends with 'date'. So, we mark this too as 'b':

And summer’s lease hath all too short a date: b

Shall we sum up the rhyme scheme of the first quatrain of the poem now? Yes, it is 'abab'-

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

Thou  art more lovely  and more temperate:  b

Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May, a

And summer’s lease hath all too short a date: b

Why don't you try to find out the rhyme scheme of the rest of the poem on your own and compare your findings with the rhyme scheme referred to earlier? Shall I not help you if you get confused? [I am sure you understand that this is a rhetorical question?]

Further Reading

Now, it's time we should stop. Ask me if you have any query. If you want to know a bit about the life and time of the poet, you may visit the link given:

https://www.britannica.com/biography/William-Shakespeare

Let me know if you have differences in opinion. And if you are interested to dig deeper, start thinking on your own. You can have multiple perspectives to weigh and judge a poem. Advanced learners can very well choose to read the article [link given] to understand what freedom we the readers enjoy when it comes to understand and appreciate a poem or any other literary text: 

https://www.bl.uk/shakespeare/articles/translating-shakespeares-sonnet-18

Post-reading Activities:

1. Complete each of the following sentences, choosing the correct option from the alternatives provided. [Each question carries 1 mark]

i. But thy eternal summer shall not fade'- here 'thy' refers to

a. Shakespeare

b. the sun

c. Shakespeare's friend

d. the season of the summer

[H.S. 2020] 

Answer Key:

i. c

2. Answer the following questions, each in a complete sentence. [Each question carries 1 mark]

i. In which month can the 'darling buds' be seen? [H.S. 2020]

ii. What does the line 'And every fair from fair sometimes decline' mean? [H.S. 2020] 

Model Answers:

i. The 'darling buds' can be seen in the month of May.

ii. The line means that every beautiful object is bound to lose its beauty at some point of time.

3. Answer the following questions, each in about 100 words. [Each question carry a total of six marks]

i. What do the rough winds do? What does the poet mean by 'summer's lease'? How is the friend's beauty superior to the summer's day?    [1+1+4] [H.S. 2020]

Model Answers:

i. The rough winds destroy the beautiful flowers that bloom in the month of May .

   By 'summer's lease', the poet means the span/duration of the season of summer.

  The friend's beauty is far more superior to the beauty of the summer season. It is more beautiful and more balanced. It never gets spoiled, but the beauty of summer often gets spoiled by rough winds, or too much of heat, or by a cloudy sky. It even lasts more than the summer which is quite temporary. But, on the other hand, the friend's beauty is bound to last as long readers choose to read this poem. [Word count: 105]