What better way can a man in love show his affection than by reciting William Shakespeare’s Sonnet 18 to his beloved? I don’t believe there is any better way. Shakespeare was a genius when it came to writing romantic poems, and to this day his poems are used to portray affection. Shakespeare, in Sonnet 18, uses his tone, literary elements like alliteration, rhyme, rhythm, personification, and metaphor, to the overall theme of the poem, to turn his poem into a masterpiece of literature.
In the first two lines of the poem Shakespeare begins with comparing his romantic interest to a summer’s day: “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day? Thou art more lovely and more temperate.” Shakespeare begins his metaphor, but then realizes that he was understating how beautiful his romantic interest was. He later follows with: “Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May, and summer’s lease is all too short a date.” The quote enhances Shakespeare’s admiration toward his romantic interest by saying that summer is more likely to change, and that it doesn’t last very long, unlike his romantic interest’s beauty. In these four lines of the sonnet we begin to see the rhyme scheme. The rhyme scheme adds beautiful rhythm to the sonnet while you’re reading it, and it helps set the mood and tone of the poem and author.
“Sometimes too hot the eye of heaven shines, and often is his gold complexion dimm’d.” The quote above shows Shakespeare’s use of personification to convey a personal relationship between him and the sun. Shakespeare believes that it is easier to write about the sun when it has more humanly features. He then continues the sonnet by stating that beautiful things in nature sometimes disappear because of the changing course nature takes. “And every fair from fair sometime declines by chance or nature’s changing course untrimm’d.” In the above lines you see that Shakespeare uses alliteration to emphasize how beautiful things, (“fair from fair…”) disappear because of change, (“by chance or nature’s changing course…”).
Shakespeare’s tone in the poem is clearly seen as romantic and passionate. This tone is achieved the way he details his romantic interest’s beauty, each line in his sonnet either tells of how much better her beauty is, or how her beauty will never end, unlike his chosen subject of summer. “But thy eternal summer shall not fade, nor lose possession of that fair thou owest.” Shakespeare doesn’t just say, “Yeah, you’ll always be beautiful.” He enriches that common saying by choosing words like “eternal” and “fair” to add more depth, more passion to the poem. He ends the poem with the following: “Nor shall Death brag…When in eternal lines to time thou growest: So long as men can breathe or eyes can see, So long lives this and this gives life to thee.” First, you see how Shakespeare emphasizes “Death” by capitalizing the first letter. This action helps assert that not even death can do away with his romantic interest. He states that by writing the sonnet, he is making her immortal, because she shall always live as long as the sonnet is read.
Sonnet 18 was cleverly created to portray a man’s affection toward his romantic interest. Shakespeare understood that in order to make his sonnet remarkable, he was to put together different literary elements to set up the correct tone and mood. If Shakespeare would have written the sonnet with informal diction, the poem’s tone would’ve been dry. No one would’ve known that it was a passionate romantic poem. Therefore I believe that Sonnet 18 will always be a masterpiece.
In the first two lines of the poem Shakespeare begins with comparing his romantic interest to a summer’s day: “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day? Thou art more lovely and more temperate.” Shakespeare begins his metaphor, but then realizes that he was understating how beautiful his romantic interest was. He later follows with: “Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May, and summer’s lease is all too short a date.” The quote enhances Shakespeare’s admiration toward his romantic interest by saying that summer is more likely to change, and that it doesn’t last very long, unlike his romantic interest’s beauty. In these four lines of the sonnet we begin to see the rhyme scheme. The rhyme scheme adds beautiful rhythm to the sonnet while you’re reading it, and it helps set the mood and tone of the poem and author.
“Sometimes too hot the eye of heaven shines, and often is his gold complexion dimm’d.” The quote above shows Shakespeare’s use of personification to convey a personal relationship between him and the sun. Shakespeare believes that it is easier to write about the sun when it has more humanly features. He then continues the sonnet by stating that beautiful things in nature sometimes disappear because of the changing course nature takes. “And every fair from fair sometime declines by chance or nature’s changing course untrimm’d.” In the above lines you see that Shakespeare uses alliteration to emphasize how beautiful things, (“fair from fair…”) disappear because of change, (“by chance or nature’s changing course…”).
Shakespeare’s tone in the poem is clearly seen as romantic and passionate. This tone is achieved the way he details his romantic interest’s beauty, each line in his sonnet either tells of how much better her beauty is, or how her beauty will never end, unlike his chosen subject of summer. “But thy eternal summer shall not fade, nor lose possession of that fair thou owest.” Shakespeare doesn’t just say, “Yeah, you’ll always be beautiful.” He enriches that common saying by choosing words like “eternal” and “fair” to add more depth, more passion to the poem. He ends the poem with the following: “Nor shall Death brag…When in eternal lines to time thou growest: So long as men can breathe or eyes can see, So long lives this and this gives life to thee.” First, you see how Shakespeare emphasizes “Death” by capitalizing the first letter. This action helps assert that not even death can do away with his romantic interest. He states that by writing the sonnet, he is making her immortal, because she shall always live as long as the sonnet is read.
Sonnet 18 was cleverly created to portray a man’s affection toward his romantic interest. Shakespeare understood that in order to make his sonnet remarkable, he was to put together different literary elements to set up the correct tone and mood. If Shakespeare would have written the sonnet with informal diction, the poem’s tone would’ve been dry. No one would’ve known that it was a passionate romantic poem. Therefore I believe that Sonnet 18 will always be a masterpiece.
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