Shakespeare Sonnet 18

Keeping love alive is not easy. One knows that life eventually comes to an end, but does love? Time passes and days must end. It is in “Sonnet 18”, by Shakespeare, that we see a challenge to the idea that love is finite. Shakespeare shows us how some love is eternal and will live on forever in comparison to a beautiful summer’s day. Shakespeare has a way of keeping love alive in “Sonnet 18”, and he uses a variety of techniques to demonstrate how love is more brilliant and everlasting than a summer’s day.

The first technique Shakespeare uses to demonstrate everlasting love is to ask the question “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?” (1) This leads the reader to consider other questions. Is love as bright and beautiful as a summer’s day? Is the person the speaker is admiring as lovely and as kind as a summer’s day? These questions are answered in the second line with “Thou art more lovely and more temperate.” This shows that the person the speaker is admiring is more beautiful, calm and understanding than a summer’s day. The summer is inferior to the person being admired, and the speaker’s love for this person is everlasting.

If anyone has every experienced a beautiful summer’s day he or she will see that the trees will shake from the wind. Leaves do eventually fall from the once lively buds of spring. Shakespeare also uses the technique of imagery to develop his idea of love in line three: “Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May.” With this Shakespeare is telling us that though the winds of a summer shake the trees beauty, it will not shake the internal feelings of love from the speaker. Summer days are limited; they are short and soon will come to an end. Every year summer ends. Yes, it may begin again next year but that is time in between that love overcomes the short time lived by summer. Meaning that the time between one summer to the next love grows. Love lasts longer and Shakespeare again uses imagery to demonstrate this in line four: “And summer's lease hath all too short a date.” The speaker believes that the love he feels is not leased for a limited time. Shakespeare emphasizes with imagery that the speaker’s love is eternal: “But thy eternal summer shall not fade.” This line of the sonnet also indicates the turn. It gives a similarity towards nature and love. Though with the summer only occupying a short term of time this reinforces that love is even more eternal and everlasting.

During the summer the sun shines hot above us all. Shakespeare uses the technique of a metaphor in line five and six: “Sometimes too hot the eye of heaven shines, / And often is his gold complexion dimmed.” This attributing of human qualities to nature shows Shakespeare’s use of metaphors as a form of personification. It creates the image that everything in the summer’s season eventually loses its beauty and begins to decay. As glorious as this sun kissed glow may feel and as long as we wish to be blessed, the clouds in the sky move over the sun, shading everything under it. This shade tends to hide the summer’s beauty. The speaker believes that the beauty of the person he admires is superior the shaded summer day. All the fairness of the summer becomes dark and dreary, similar to what becomes