essay on themes of shakespeare's sonnets

Shakespeare’s Sonnets

Take your pick of Shakespeare’s sonnets below, along with a modern English interpretation of each one aid understanding.

Shakespeare wrote 154 sonnets published in his ‘quarto’ in 1609, covering themes such as the passage of time, mortality, love, beauty, infidelity, and jealousy. The first 126 of Shakespeare’s sonnets are addressed to a young man, and the last 28 addressed to a woman – a mysterious ‘dark lady’.

Jump to a section: Read all sonnets | Famous sonnets |  Publishing the sonnets | Sonnet dedications  

What is a Shakespearean sonnet?

Shakespeare’s sonnets are poems of expressive ideas and thoughts that are layered with multiple meanings, and always have two things in common:

1. All sonnets have fourteen lines

2. All sonnets are written in iambic pentameter

Read more about what a sonnet is , and iambic pentameter .

Read all 154 of Shakespeare’s sonnets

Take your pick from the list of Shakespeare sonnets below (or learn how to write a sonnet of your own!):

Sonnet 1: From Fairest Creatures We Desire Increase

Sonnet 2: When Forty Winters Shall Besiege Thy Brow

Sonnet 3: Look In Thy Glass, And Tell The Face Thou Viewest

Sonnet 4: Unthrifty Loveliness, Why Dost Thou Spend

Sonnet 5: Those Hours, That With Gentle Work Did Frame

Sonnet 6: Then Let Not Winter’s Ragged Hand Deface

Sonnet 7: Lo! In The Orient When The Gracious Light

Sonnet 8: Music To Hear, Why Hear’st Thou Music Sadly?

Sonnet 9: Is It For Fear To Wet A Widow’s Eye

Sonnet 10: For Shame Deny That Thou Bear’st Love To Any

Sonnet 11: As Fast As Thou Shalt Wane, So Fast Thou Grow

Sonnet 12: When I Do Count The Clock That Tells Time

Sonnet 13: O! That You Were Your Self! But, Love, You Are

Sonnet 14: Not From The Stars Do I My Judgement Pluck

Sonnet 15: When I Consider Everything That Grows

Sonnet 16: But Wherefore Do Not You A Mightier Way

Sonnet 17: Who Will Believe In My Verse In Time To Come

Sonnet 18: Shall I Compare Thee To A Summer’s Day?

Sonnet 19: Devouring Time, Blunt Thou The Lion’s Paw

Sonnet 20: A Woman’s Face With Nature’s Own Hand Painted

Sonnet 21: So It Is Not With Me As With That Muse

Sonnet 22: My Glass Shall Not Persuade Me I Am Old

Sonnet 23: As An Unperfect Actor On The Stage

Sonnet 24: Mine Eye Hath Play’d The Painter and Hath Steel’d

Sonnet 25: Let Those Who Are In Favour With Their Stars

Sonnet 26: Lord Of My Love, To Whom In Vassalage

Sonnet 27: Weary With Toil, I Haste To My Bed

Sonnet 28: How Can I Then Return In Happy Plight

Sonnet 29: When In Disgrace With Fortune and Men’s Eyes

Sonnet 30: When To The Sessions Of Sweet Silent Thought

Sonnet 31: Thy Bosom Is Endeared With All Hearts

Sonnet 32: If Thou Survive My Well-Contented Day

Sonnet 33: Full Many A Glorious Morning I Have Seen

Sonnet 34: Why Didst Thou Promise Such A Beauteous Day

Sonnet 35: No More Be Grieved At That Which Thou Hast Done

Sonnet 36: Let Me Confess That We Two Must Be Twain

Sonnet 37: As A Decrepit Father Takes Delight

Sonnet 38: How Can My Muse Want Subject To Invent

Sonnet 39: O! How Thy Worth With Manners May I Sing

Sonnet 40: Take All My Loves, My Love, Yea Take Them All

Sonnet 41: Those Pretty Wrongs That Liberty Commits

Sonnet 42: That Thou Hast It Is Not All My Grief

Sonnet 43: When Most I Wink, Then Do Mine Eyes Best See

Sonnet 44: If The Dull Substance Of My Flesh Were Thought

Sonnet 45: That Thou Hast It Is Not All My Grief

Sonnet 46: Mine Eye And Heart Are At A Mortal War

Sonnet 47: Betwixt Mine Eye And Heart A League Is Took

Sonnet 48: How Careful Was I When I Took My Way

Sonnet 49: Against That Time, If Ever That Time Come

Sonnet 50: How Heavy Do I Journey On The Way

Sonnet 51: Thus Can My Love Excuse The Slow Offence

Sonnet 52: So Am I As The Rich, Whose Blessed Key

Sonnet 53: What Is Your Substance, Whereof Are You Made

Sonnet 54: O! How Much More Doth Beauty Beauteous Seem

Sonnet 55: O! Not Marble, Nor The Gilded Monuments

Sonnet 56: Sweet Love, Renew Thy Force; Be It Not Said

Sonnet 57: Being Your Slave What Should I Do But Tend

Sonnet 58: That God Forbid, That Made Me First Your Slave

Sonnet 59: If There Be Nothing New, But That Which Is

Sonnet 60: Like As The Waves Make Towards The Pebbled Shore

Sonnet 61: Is It Thy Will, Thy Image Should Keep Open

Sonnet 62: Sin Of Self-love Possesseth All Mine Eye

Sonnet 63: Against My Love Shall Be As I Am Now

Sonnet 64: When I Have Seen By Time’s Fell Hand Defac’d

Sonnet 65: Since Brass, Nor Stone, Nor Earth, Nor Boundless Sea

Sonnet 66: Tired For All These, For Restful Death I Cry

Sonnet 67: Ah! Wherefore With Infection Should He Live

Sonnet 68: In Days Long Since, Before These Last So Bad

Sonnet 69: Those Parts Of Thee That The World’s Eye Doth View

Sonnet 70: That Thou Art Blamed Shall Not Be Thy Defect

Sonnet 71: No Longer Mourn For Me When I Am Dead

Sonnet 72: O! Lest The World Should Task You To Recite

Sonnet 73: That Time Of Year Thou Mayst In Me Behold

Sonnet 74: But Be Contented When That Fell Arrest

Sonnet 75: So Are You To My Thoughts As Food To Life

Sonnet 76: Why Is My Verse So Barren Of New Pride

Sonnet 77: Thy Glass Will Show Thee How Thy Beauties Wear

Sonnet 78: So Oft Have I Invoked Thee For My Muse

Sonnet 79: Whilst I Alone Did Call Upon Thy Aid

Sonnet 80: O! How I Faint When I Do Write Of You

Sonnet 81: Or I Shall Live Your Epitaph To Make

Sonnet 82: I Grant Thou Wert Not Married To My Muse

Sonnet 83: I Never Saw That You Did Painting Need

Sonnet 84: Who Is It That Says Most, Which Can Say More

Sonnet 85: My Tongue-Tied Muse In Manners Holds Her Still

Sonnet 86: Was It The Proud Sail Of His Great Verse

Sonnet 87: Farewell! Thou Art Too Dear For My Possessing

Sonnet 88: When Thou Shalt Be Dispos’d To Set Me Light

Sonnet 89: Say That Thou Didst Forsake Me For Some Fault

Sonnet 90: Then Hate Me When Thou Wilt; If Ever, Now

Sonnet 91: Some Glory In Ttheir Birth, Some In Their Skill

Sonnet 92: But Do Thy Worst To Steal Thyself Away

Sonnet 93: So Shall I Live, Supposing Thou Art True

Sonnet 94: They That Have Power To Hurt, And Will Do None

Sonnet 95: How Sweet And Lovely Dost Thou Make The Shame

Sonnet 96: Some Say Thy Fault Is Youth, Some Wantonness

Sonnet 97: How Like A Winter Hath My Absence Been

Sonnet 98: From You Have I Been Absent In The Spring

Sonnet 99: The Forward Violet Thus Did I Chide

Sonnet 100: Where Art Thou, Muse, That Thou Forget’st So Long

Sonnet 101: O Truant Muse, What Shall Be Thy Amends

Sonnet 102: My Love Is Strengthen’d, Though More Weak In Seeming

Sonnet 103: Alack, What Poverty My Muse Brings Forth

Sonnet 104: To Me, Fair Friend, You Never Can Be Old

Sonnet 105: Let Not My Love Be Called Idolatry

Sonnet 106: When In The Chronicle Of Wasted Time

Sonnet 107: Not Mine Own Fears, Nor The Prophetic Soul

Sonnet 108: What’s In The Brain That Ink May Character

Sonnet 109: O! Never Say That I Was False Of Heart

Sonnet 110: Alas! ‘Tis True, I Have Gone Here And There

Sonnet 111: O For My Sake Do You With Fortune Chide

Sonnet 112: Your Love And Pity Doth Th’ Impression Fill

Sonnet 113: Since I Left You, Mine Eye Is In My Mind

Sonnet 114: Or Whether Doth My Mind, Being Crowned With You

Sonnet 115: Those Lines That I Before Have Writ Do Lie

Sonnet 116: Let Me Not To The Marriage Of True Minds

Sonnet 117: Accuse Me Thus: That I Have Scanted All

Sonnet 118: Like As To Make Our Appetites More Keen

Sonnet 119: What Potions Have I Drunk Of Siren Tears

Sonnet 120: That You Were Once Unkind Befriends Me Now

Sonnet 121: ‘Tis Better To Be Vile Than Vile Esteemed

Sonnet 122: Thy Gift, Thy Tables, Are Within My Brain

Sonnet 123: Thy Pyramids Built Up With Newer Might

Sonnet 124: If My Dear Love Were But The Child Of State

Sonnet 125: Were’t Ought To Me I Bore The Canopy

Sonnet 126: O Thou, My Lovely Boy, Who In Thy Pow’r

Sonnet 127: In The Old Age Black Was Not Counted Fair

Sonnet 128: How Oft When Thou, My Music, Music Play’st

Sonnet 129: Th’ Expense Of Spirit In A Waste Of Shame

Sonnet 130: My Mistress’ Eyes Are Nothing Like The Sun

Sonnet 131: Thou Art As Tyrannous, So As Thou Art

Sonnet 132: Thine Eyes I Love, And They, As Pitying Me

Sonnet 133: Beshrew That Heart That Makes My Heart To Groan

Sonnet 134: So Now I Have Confessed That He Is Thine

Sonnet 135: Whoever Hath Her Wish, Thou Hast Thy Will

Sonnet 136: If Thy Soul Check Thee That I Come So Near

Sonnet 137: Thou Blind Fool, Love, What Dost Thou To Mine Eyes

Sonnet 138: When My Love Swears That She Is Made Of Truth

Sonnet 139: O! Call Not Me To Justify The Wrong

Sonnet 140: Be Wise As Thou Art Cruel

Sonnet 141: In Faith I Do Not Love You With Mine Eyes

Sonnet 142: Love Is My Sin, And Thy Dear Virtue Hate

Sonnet 143: Lo, As A Careful Housewife Runs To Catch

Sonnet 144: Two Loves I Have Of Comfort And Despair

Sonnet 145: Those Lips That Love’s Own Hand Did Make

Sonnet 146: Poor Soul, The Centre Of My Sinful Earth

Sonnet 147: My Love Is As A Fever Longing Still

Sonnet 148: O Me! What Eyes Hath Love Put In My Head

Sonnet 149: Canst Thou, O Cruel! Say I Love Thee Not

Sonnet 150: O! From What Power Hast Thou This Powerful Might

Sonnet 151: Love Is Too Young To Know What Conscience Is

Sonnet 152: In Loving Thee Thou Kow’st I Am Forsworn

Sonnet 153: Cupid Laid By His Brand And Fell Asleep

Sonnet 154: The Little Love-God Lying Once Asleep

This complete collection of 154 sonnets with explanations is available in an ebook to download now .

Picture of the famous Shakespeare sonnets folio

Famous Sonnets By Shakespeare

Shakespeare published 154 sonnets , and although they are all poems of the highest quality, there are some that have entered deeply into the consciousness of our culture to become the most famous Shakespeare sonnets . This handful of sonnets are quoted regularly by people at all levels of modern western life – sometimes without even realizing that they are quoting a line from Shakespeare.

In our humble opinion the 8 sonnets below represent Shakespeare’s most famous words in the sonnet form:

Sonnet 18:  Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?

Perhaps the most famous of all the sonnets is Sonnet 18, where Shakespeare addresses a young man to whom he is very close. It would be impossible to say whether Shakespeare was an arrogant man because we don’t know what he was like. We also don’t know whether he thought he was the ‘great,’ immortal writer that we regard him as today. However, after describing the young man’s great beauty, he suggests that his poetry is ‘eternal’ and ends by stating that as long as there are people who can still read, the sonnet, and therefore the description of the young man’s beauty, will still be there.

Sonnet 30:  When to the sessions of sweet silent thought

An interesting take on aging and love. The narrator describes the things that people agonize over as they descend into old age – all the regrets and the pain of reliving the mistakes he has made. It’s full of agony but when he thinks about his beloved all the regrets and pain evaporate.

Sonnet 33:  Full many a glorious morning have I seen

This is a poem about loss; the loss of a loved one. Shakespeare approaches it by expressing the contrast in the way we feel when the morning sun is shining brightly and when it’s obscured by clouds, making the world a forlorn place. When he was loved by the beloved it was like the glorious morning, but now, having lost the beloved, it feels like an overcast and gloomy morning. He concludes that he doesn’t condemn the beloved because human frailty, even among the best of humanity, is just as much a part of nature as the obscuring clouds are.

Sonnet 73:  That time of year thou mayst in me behold

The narrator of Sonnet 73 is approaching death and thinking about how different it is from being young. It’s like the branch of a tree where birds once sang but the birds have gone and the leaves have fallen, leaving only a few dry yellow leaves. It’s like the twilight of a beautiful day, where there is only the black night ahead. It’s like the glowing ashes of a fire that once roared. The things that one gave him life have destroyed his life. From that experience, he has learned that one has to love life as strongly as one can because it will end all too soon.

Sonnet 104:  To me, fair friend, you never can be old

Here Shakespeare expresses the love one person has for another by showing how the beauty of the beloved doesn’t change in the eyes of the lover. He shows time passing through the seasons and the years, everything changing. Except for the beauty of the beloved. He goes further by saying that no matter how long the world will endure, even though the beloved is long dead there will never be another as beautiful.

Sonnet 116:  Let me not to the marriage of true minds admit impediments

There are two striking definitions of love that we refer to again and again. Perhaps the most popular of the two is in Paul’s letter to the Corinthians ( Corinthians 13: 4-8 ):

Love is patient, love is kind; love is not jealous or boastful; it is not arrogant or rude. Love does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrong, but rejoices in the right. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends.

Paul’s text is as well known as Sonnet 116 because it is used in most weddings as the young couple stands before the minister. But Shakespeare’s sonnet employs an amazing array of poetic devices to convey the eternal nature of love. Shakespeare ends by staking everything on his observations about love by asserting that if he is wrong about it then no-one ever wrote anything and no-one ever loved.

Sonnet 129:  The expense of spirit in a waste of shame

Sonnet 129 is an interesting take on the imperative force of lust, but its ultimate shallowness. Everyone knows how shallow and guilt-producing lust is but very few men can avoid it. Shakespeare shows how lust brings out the very worst in people and the extremes they will go to. And then he explains the guilt that follows the satisfaction of one’s lust.

Sonnet 130:  My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun

Shakespeare is expressing the kind of love that has nothing to do with the beloved’s looks. He satirizes the usual way of expressing love for a woman – praising her lips and her hair, the way she walks, and all the things that a young man may rave about when he thinks about his beloved. What he does is invert those things, assert that his beloved is ugly, ungainly, bad-smelling, etc, but ends by saying that his love for her is as ‘rare’ as that of any young man who writes flatteringly about the object of his love.

Interested in sonnets from other authors? Check out our sonnet examples from highly regarded poets who do things a little differently to Shakespeare’s sonnets.

Publishing Shakespeare’s Sonnets

A widely held belief contends that Shakespeare’s sonnets were published without his consent. Had Shakespeare endorsed their publication, many believe he would have provided their printer with an authoritative text and a dedication. However, “Shakes-peares Sonnets” contains no dedication from the author and the text has many errors. Some critics also maintain that some sonnets are unfinished and that the sequence is too incoherent to have been intended for publication.

Exponents of this view have argued that someone whom Shakespeare trusted betrayed him by giving the poems to their first publisher, Thomas Thope, or that a thief, perhaps motivated by animosity or personal profit, seized the poets manuscript and sold it on. Some hold that the publication of the sonnets surely upset Shakespeare, whose poems dealt with scandalous forms of love; homoerotic and adulterous. Others variously insist that these subjects are more shocking to post-Victorian readers than to Jacobean ones; that, whilst the sonnets voice strong feelings, these were entirely appropriate to the form; and that emotions expressed in his sonnets do not mirror Shakespeare’s own any more than those of  dramatic characters in his plays .

Who Were The Shakespeare Sonnets Dedicated To?

Certain features of  the sonnet form – not least the first-person narrative and themes of love – give the impression of offering direct access to their author’s inner world. Since there has long been intense curiosity about the ‘youth’ addressed in the sonnets, clues to his identity have also been extracted with no little strain from the frontispiece of the first edition. The author of this dedication, T.T, was Thomas Thorpe, the publisher. But the identity of the “begetter” of the sonnets, “Mr W. H.” remains a mystery. Some think this is a misprint for “Mr W. S.” or “Mr W. Sh.”, as in William Shakespeare. Others suspect that the “begetter” refers to the scoundrel who may have conveyed the poems to Thorpe against Shakespeare’s wishes.  But the most widely held assumption is that the “beggetter” must be the person who inspired the “ensuing sonnets”, the majority of which address a young man.

Working from the scant evidence offered by the initials W. H., literary detectives have proposed many candidates. One is  Henry Wriothesley, Earl of Southampton , to whom Shakespeare dedicated  Venus and Adonis  and  The Rape of Lucrece  in the mid-1590s. Another is William Herbert, Earl of Pembroke, whose name figures among those to whom the First Folio was dedicated in 1623. A third candidate is Sir William Hervey, stepfather of the Earl of Southampton, who may have commissioned lyrics urging the young man to marry and produce an heir – the first 17 sonnets of the sequence treat this theme. Of these candidates, however, two were earls and one was a gentleman, referred to as “Sir”. None would have been called “Mr” save by error or to suggest intimacy. In the end, these probing enigmas of Shakespeare’s sonnets are forced to speculate; information is poor, scarce and inconclusive.

The numbers behind the sonnets

Who knew that Shakespeare’s sonnets and mathematics were so linked?

In the super-interesting video below, Professor Roger Bowley talks about the tight constraints – and shape – that numbers gave to Shakespeare’s sonnets.

What’s your take on the Shakespeare sonnets listed above? Let us know by joining in the conversation in the comments section below!

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I verry mutch like sonnet154

I proposed a hypothesis revealing the meaning of the mysterious Dedication – see my article `Shakespeare’s Sonnets: The Riddle of Dedication` https://vixra.org/abs/2102.0107

The sonnets, especially 34, suggest to me that Shakespeare may have been unhappy in his relationships. It makes me sad.

nice, thanks, his works are more than meets the eye!

What an impressionable Mark he left throughout his generations still centuries later We’re still learning from him A true composure of his pieces Shows how tangible one’s touch can be on time I have an original William Shakespeare ‘The tragedy of McBeth’ 1673 1908 edition I cherish

Shakespeare’s collection of 154 sonnets, initially published in 1609 in the ‘quarto’, encapsulates a rich tapestry of themes that reflect the complexities of human emotions and experiences. Central themes that reverberate through these sonnets include the passage of time, mortality, love, beauty, infidelity, and jealousy, inviting readers into a profound exploration of the human condition.

A prominent theme across the sonnets is the passage of time and its inexorable effects on human life. Shakespeare grapples with the fleeting nature of time, expressing the inevitable march towards mortality and the fleeting nature of youth and beauty. He frequently uses imagery related to seasons, days, and hours to underscore the transience of life and the urgency to seize the present moment.

Love, arguably the most pervasive theme in the sonnet sequence, is depicted in various shades – from idealized and romantic to tumultuous and conflicted. The first 126 sonnets, addressed to a young man, explore themes of infatuation, adoration, friendship, and the desire for legacy and immortality through procreation. These sonnets delve into the complexities of platonic and romantic love, capturing the profound emotions experienced by the speaker.

In the latter part of the sequence, the focus shifts to a ‘dark lady,’ an enigmatic woman who is the subject of the remaining 28 sonnets. Here, the sonnets take a more provocative turn, exploring themes of lust, jealousy, betrayal, and the darker aspects of romantic relationships. The portrayal of this ‘dark lady’ offers a contrast to the idealized love depicted in the earlier sonnets and delves into the complexities of human desires and emotions. Shakespeare’s sonnets remain a timeless exploration of the human psyche, revealing the multifaceted nature of human emotions and experiences. The duality between the idealized love for the young man and the more tumultuous relationships with the ‘dark lady’ provides a holistic depiction of the highs and lows of love and the inevitability of the passage of time and mortality.

Serenity Wortham, yours an articulate and eloquent description. Thank you so very much.

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Shakespeare's Sonnets William Shakespeare

Shakespeare's Sonnets essays are academic essays for citation. These papers were written primarily by students and provide critical analysis of various sonnets by William Shakespeare.

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Shakespeare’s Sonnets Essays

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Explore the Greatest Poetry

All 154 of william shakespeare’s sonnets.

William Shakespeare’s Sonnets offers love, the passage of time, and beauty, showing the complexities of human emotions.

Although William Shakespeare was most known for the plays he wrote, he also wrote a lot of sonnets too ( what is a sonnet? ): 154 in fact. With this, here is the complete list of every sonnet that William Shakespeare ever wrote, linking to the summary and analysis of each for yourself to explore.

What is a Shakespearean Sonnet?

A Shakespearean sonnet is a poem that is fourteen lines long , as this traditional with sonnets, that follows a rhyme scheme of ABABCDCDEFEFGG , and uses iambic pentameter .

This means each sonnet is made up of three quatrains (set of ABABs), with a final rhyming couplet . Typical of Shakespeare’s sonnets, the lines two lines tend to summarize the sonnet very well, leaving a twist, an emotion, or an overview of the topic of the sonnet.

What are Shakespeare’s Sonnets Primarily About? 

Shakespeare’s 154 Sonnets touch on a range of themes. But, the sonnets are primarily about two relationships and the trials and tribulations the speaker endures as he navigates them.

Readers will often find the speaker reflecting upon:

• His age and the passage of time
• Lust and passion
• Betrayal and infidelity

The Fair Youth and the Dark Lady

The sonnets are loosely divided into two sections: the Fair Youth sonnets and the Dark Lady sonnets.

The first section of sonnets, 1-126, is concerned with the speaker’s relationship with a young man. He is socially superior to the speaker, younger, more beautiful, and according to the speaker, ignoring his duty to father children. Throughout these sonnets, the speaker explores the young man’s beauty, how they treat one another, what the young man should do in life, and especially how his beauty is going to fade if he doesn’t father children.

The second set of sonnets, 127-152, is about a relationship with a mysterious woman known as the Dark Lady. She’s cruel, beautiful, and responsible for a great deal of the speaker’s distress. She has a dark complexion and is very sexual.

The final two sonnets, 153 and 154, are different from those that came before them. They stand alone and are usually considered anacreontics. They deal with wine, love, and song and are often thought to be concerned with Edmund Spenser . There are references to venereal disease, sex, and the story of Cupid.

All 154 of William Shakespeare’s Sonnets

Explore each of Shakespeare’s 154 sonnets, with links to their corresponding analyses. Click on any sonnet to reveal the full poem text, with a short summary of the sonnet.

Introduces many of the themes which echo through the rest of the collection.

Addresses the need to have children as a way of guaranteeing one’s legacy and beauty. 

Main themes of procreation and beauty. The  tone  of the poem portrays the lyrical   voice ’s fixation and fervor over the young man, the ‘Fair Youth.’

Compares the choice to have children to a good investment in immortality. 

Urges a young man to marry and have children in order to immortalize his beauty and refers to the ‘Fair Youth.’

Extends and continues with the themes and the imagery of ‘ Sonnet 5 .’ Winter imagery and summer imagery are opposed in order to symbolize old age and young age.

Directed at the Fair Youth who has yet to find a wife and have a child. 

Speaks on the Fair Youth’s lack of commitment and selfish hoarding of his beauty.

The poem is one of the harsher, more direct ones in the series. In it, the speaker negatively accuses the Fair Youth for not wanting to have a child.

Addresses the Fair Youth and tells him that it’s in his best interest to have children.

Uses a series of images and metaphors to depict the ravages of time that the Fair Youth will have to face.

A poem about life, death, and how one can extend their life through their children. 

Addressed to the Fair Youth and, like other sonnets, encourages the young man to have children. 

A love poem directed at the Fair Youth about whom the speaker is very concerned. 

The speaker is addressing the power, or lack thereof, of poetry. It might help to preserve something of the Fair Youth’s beauty and goodness, but not like a child would.

The speaker makes a plea for the Fair Youth to realize that the speaker’s writing can only go so far. He might do his best and capture the youth accurately, but no one in the future is going to believe him.

Attempts to justify the speaker’s beloved’s beauty by comparing it to a summer’s day and comes to the conclusion that his beloved is better after listing some of the summer’s negative qualities

Contains a speaker’s pleas to Time that she spare her lover from old age. 

Acknowledges the Fair Youth’s body and beauty and presents questions about the speaker’s sexuality.

Addresses the speaker’s feelings for the Fair Youth and compares his own writing to another poet’s.

One in a series of poems that connects love, beauty, and aging as they exist between the speaker and the Fair Youth.

Addresses the speaker’s inability to communicate sufficiently the love he bears for the Fair Youth. 

A love poem that uses an  extended metaphor  to depict the connection between the speaker and the Fair Youth.

A clever love poem that compares the speaker’s permanent love to fleeting moments of fame. 

Addresses the speaker’s inability to put his love and devotion into clear and worthy words. 

Speaks on the exhaustion and hope associated with the jewel-like image of a young man. 

Addresses a speaker’s inability to sleep and his attempts to remedy this problem through  personification  and  hyperbole . 

One of several poems dedicated to the unknown Fair Youth, in which he despairs over his state, his fate, and his difference from other luckier men.

Describes the speaker’s most depressed state and what it is that finally lifts him out of it and relieves his sorrows. 

Imbues the Fair Youth with all the love that the speaker should’ve given to and received from other lovers.

Directed towards the Fair Youth and discusses the impact that the speaker’s poems will have in the future. 

A complex image of love and betrayal crafted through a  metaphor  comparing the youth to the sun. 

Uses the metaphor of the sun covered by clouds to depict the Fair Youth’s sin. 

Addressed to the Fair Youth and explains how the two of them are no longer going to be able to see one another.

Compares the speaker’s position to that of the young, beautiful man about whom he cares so deeply. 

A heartfelt poem that focuses on the importance of a specific muse and his influence over the speaker’s writing. 

Addresses the speaker’s inability to adequately praise and celebrate the Fair Youth when the two are together. 

Directed to the Fair Youth and discusses his recent choice to sleep with the speaker’s mistress.

Addressed to the Fair Youth about whom Shakespeare’s speaker cares so deeply. 

The final poem in the series of “betrayal sonnets” addresses the youth’s misdeed, sleeping with the speaker’s mistress.

Speaks about sleeping, darkness, light, and the Fair Youth’s power to brighten the speaker’s dreams.

A creative poem that depicts the speaker’s dream of being able to travel through space as a thought. 

Addressed to the Fair Youth and discusses the speaker’s connection to him via two elements, air and fire. 

Addressed to the Fair Youth and uses the “eyes” and “heart” to speak on the ways that he is loved. 

Finished thoughts that the speaker began in ‘ Sonnet 46 ’ in regards to an agreement of the eyes and heart.

Addresses the Fair Youth’s position within the speaker’s heart and the insecurity of that position. 

The speaker states that he is undeserving of the youth’s love, therefore preparing himself  for the future . 

Presents the reader with a  depressing image of the speaker as he separates himself from the Fair Youth. 

The second part of a depressing and longing-filled narrative about travel that the speaker began in ‘ Sonnet 50 ’. 

Filled with  figurative language  that compares the speaker’s relationship with the Fair Youth to a closed treasure chest.

A  devotional poem  that expresses the speaker’s admiration for the beauty of the Fair Youth. 

A clever and memorable poem that uses two similar yet integrally different flowers to speak on the Fair Youth. 

The poem has a musical quality that is heightened further by  alliteration  here and there.

Addresses a period of separation and a possible decline in affection between the speaker and the Fair Youth. 

A typical love poem – the speaker extols the virtues of his lover, and he vows to love and adore his lover, regardless of whether or not it is returned. 

Directed to the Fair Youth and describes the speaker’s slave-like devotion to the young man. 

Takes a look at the notion of originality and how things have changed, or have not, in the last 500 years. 

Discusses the power of time to take life from even the most beautiful and the power of writing to fight back. 

A devotional sonnet that’s dedicated to the relationship that exists between the speaker and the Fair Youth. 

One in a series of sonnets that is focused on the love that Shakespeare, or a speaker he is channeling, holds for a young man.

A dark and depressing poem that speaks on the power of time to destroy the speaker’s love.

One of several poems that discuss time, aging, and what writing can and cannot do to fight against these forces.

A dark and depressing poem that expresses the speaker’s irritation and exhaustion with the world. 

An interesting and multilayered poem that discusses the role that the Fair Youth plays in a world where all other beauty is fake. 

An interesting poem that discusses the ways that slanderous people treat the Fair Youth’s beauty. 

Directed at the Fair Youth and describes what the youth should do and feel after the speaker has died. 

A gloomy poem that informs the Fair Youth that he should forget the speaker entirely once he’s dead. 

Part of the set of poems that are addressed to an unnamed young man named the Fair Youth.

A going sonnet that depicts the speaker’s uncontrollable obsession with the Fair Youth. 

An upbeat and clever sonnet that discusses the speaker’s love for the youth and his own writing.

Engages in some of the most common themes in Shakespeare’s 154 sonnet series, including old age, time, and beauty.

Contains the words of an infatuated speaker who attributes his verse to the Fair Youth‘s influence.

Discusses the complicated relationship between the speaker, the youth, and other poets who might write about him.

One of several poems that alludes to the influence of the arrival poet on the relationship between the speaker and the Fair Youth.

One of several poems that speaks on the power of writing to create an immortal tomb for the Fair Youth.

Discuss the Fair Youth‘s relationship with all the writers dedicated to his beauty. 

Discusses the speaker’s tactics when it comes to depicting the Fair Youth’s beauty in his verse. 

One of several poems that uses writing as a major theme talk about the Fair Youth’s beauty. 

One of several poems that discusses the impacts that other writers have on the speaker and the Fair Youth’s relationship.

One of a number of poems that discuss the influence of a “rival poet” on the Fair Youth and the speaker’s relationship.

A depressing poem in which the speaker discusses his inadequacies and the loss of the youth’s love. 

One of several poems that discusses the degrees of worth that the speaker feels extends between himself and the youth. 

The second half of ‘ Sonnet 88 ’ that discusses the speaker’s willingness to scorn himself. 

Speaks about the disintegrating relationship between the Fair Youth and the speaker, as in previous sonnets.

A fairly straightforward poem that expresses the speaker’s pride in his relationship with the fair youth and his fear of losing him.

Discusses the fact that the speaker is going to live and die happily because of his relationship with the Fair Youth.

Describes how the Fair Youth’s countenance is crafted in such a way that it shows nothing but love.

An interesting and multilayered sonnet that suggests that the Fair Youth is on the verge of losing his admirable nature.

Directed at the Fair Youth in an attempt to help him curb his misdeeds and stop taking advantage of his beauty.

Addresses the Fair Youth’s faults and describes the young man’s ability to cloak them in goodness.

Filled with natural images that are used to describe the importance of the youth’s presence.

Describes the speaker’s inability to enjoy spring due to the absence of his lover.

Uses natural images to compare the Fair Youth’s beauty to a variety of different flowers.

Marks a turn in Shakespeare’s Fair Youth series in which he implores his muse to inspire him.

Directed at the speaker’s muse, who is continually failing to provide him with the inspiration he needs.

Depicts the nature of the speaker’s love for the Fair Youth and why he doesn’t always express it.

Describes how useless and feeble words are to describe his love for the Fair Youth.

Addresses the facts of aging and the possibility that the Fair Youth is affected just as much as anyone else is.

A poem about a writer’s love for a young man and his devotion to three specific themes.

One of the many poems that is part of the Fair Youth sequence: a series of poems that are addressed to an unknown young man.

A beautiful poem in which the speaker addresses how he and the Fair Youth are going to be memorialized.

Depicts the speaker’s love for the Fair Youth as unchanging, despite the ravages of old age.

A devotional sonnet written to the speaker’s “rose,” the Fair Youth.

Depicts the speaker’s wanderings and his desire to return to his true love.

Describes the speaker’s opinion of himself and the cure he’s seeking.

Describes how highly the speaker values the Youth’s opinion of him.

Depicts how obsessed and in love with the Fair Youth the speaker is.

A complex poem that deals with the eye/mind relationship and the love the speaker holds for the Fair Youth.

Expresses the speaker’s opinion about how much better the future is going to be than the past in regard to his relationship.

Shakespeare’s speaker is ruminating on love. He says that love never changes, and if it does, it is not true or real in the first place.

Asks the Fair Youth to consider the speaker’s mistakes while also understanding why he made them.

Discusses the complexities of the speaker’s relationship with the Youth and an important mistake he made.

A complex poem that contains the speaker’s apology for cheating on the Fair Youth with a woman.

Alludes to the speaker’s and the Youth’s infidelity.

A poem about being true to one’s self, admiring mistakes, and corruption.

An unusual sonnet in which the speaker describes throwing away a gift the Fair Youth gave him.

Depicts the ravages of time and how he sees himself, his love, and his character as beyond them.

A sonnet about the speaker’s love and how far above normal experiences it is.

A sonnet about what kind of love the speaker has to offer the Fair Youth.

The last Fair Youth sonnet. It concedes to the inevitability of death.

The first Dark Lady sonnet. It addresses the speaker’s mistress’s beauty and dark complexion.

The second Dark Lady sonnet. It depicts the speaker’s mistress playing an instrument and conveys the speaker’s lust for her.

Speaks on the physical and emotional power that lust wields.

Contrasts the Dark Lady’s looks with the conventional hyperboles used in contemporary sonnets.

A Dark Lady sonnet that addresses the Lady’s complexion and how the speaker loves her.

One of several sonnets addressed to the Dark Lady. It explores her pity and disdain for the speaker through images of her eyes.

Speaks on the speaker’s concern about the Dark Lady’s cruelty.

Addresses the Dark Lady who has seduced the Fair Youth.

Depicts the speaker’s unbridled lust for the Dark Lady and begs her for intercourse.

A complex sonnet in which the speaker uses his name to create  puns  and  allusions .

A serious sonnet about the difference between what the eyes see and what the heart/mind knows is right.

A poem about the deceitful relationship the speaker has with the Dark Lady.

A poem about the Dark Lady’s continuing infidelity and the speaker’s suffering.

Contains the speaker’s threats towards the Dark Lady if she doesn’t change her behavior.

Shakespeare addresses the Dark Lady, the object of his affections, discussing the fact that, although his senses rebel at the sound and sight and existence of the Lady, he loves her nevertheless. 

About the speaker’s relationship with the Dark Lady and how their affair is spiraling.

Depicts the speaker’s relationship through an image of a mother chasing chickens and abandoning her child.

Suggests that the Dark Lady is having a negative influence on the Fair Youth.

A fairly simple poem about a woman’s changing opinion of the speaker.

About the speaker’s relationship with the Dark Lady and how it’s taken his focus away from his spiritual health.

Compares the speaker’s love for the Dark Lady to an illness he can’t and won’t get rid of.

Describes how blinded the speaker has become due to his relationship with the Dark Lady.

Focuses on the speaker’s obsessive state of mind in regard to the Dark Lady.

Contains several questions the speaker addresses to his mistress, the Dark Lady.

Explores the speaker’s sexual desire for the Dark Lady.

Suggests that the relationship between the Dark Lady and the speaker is coming to an end. He’s failed in his attempts to rationalize her actions.

An interesting sonnet. It’s concerned with the speaker’s inability to cure his lovesickness.

Describes how the  speaker  attempted to alleviate his lovesickness. He inevitably failed, as he has throughout the rest of the sonnets.

The first 126 of Shakespeare’s sonnets were addressed to an unknown man called the ‘Fair Youth.’ The latter 28 sonnets were addressed to an unknown woman, known as the ‘dark lady.’

This isn’t as easy a question to answer since it depends on what is defined as ‘write.’ Shakespeare definitively wrote 37 plays but also had other plays. A lost play, ‘Cardenio,’ was attributed to him, whilst there are potentially a couple of others that were attributed to other people, but academics think Shakespeare wrote. All in all, the best answer is 37, but the number could easily go to 39 or even 40.

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William Shakespeare’s Sonnet 18 Analysis: Tone, Imagery, Symbolism, and More

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Sonnet 18: Introduction

Sonnet 18 analysis: literary devices, sonnet 18: tone and themes, symbolism and imagery in the sonnet 18, literary analysis of sonnet 18: conclusion, works cited.

Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day? The Sonnet 18 by William Shakespeare is one of the most known Shakespeare’s sonnets. Want to learn more about the themes, tone, and imagery in Sonnet 18 ? Read the literary analysis below!

This essay analyzes Shakespeare’s Sonnet 18 . The sonnet is a captivating love story of a young man fascinated by the beauty of his mistress and affectionately comparing her to nature. The first stanza, ‘Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?’ opens the poem with an indication of a young man deeply in love (Shakespeare 1). He envisions her as a beautiful creature and even wonders whether one can compare her beauty to any summer season.

This love sonnet falls under the lyric genre, with the author expressing deep emotional feelings for his mistress throughout the poem. The first stanza gives an assumption to the reader that the poet is not sure of what is more beautiful, a beautiful summer day or his mistress.

However, the air is cleared in the preceding stanzas that see the poet overcome by flamboyant feelings and admits that his lover is even lovelier than the summer itself (Shakespeare 2). The poem embeds an image of an undying and eternal kind of beauty as visualized by the poet.

The poet adopts a thematic structure technique to express his lover’s beauty. A line-by-line analysis of Sonnet 18 shows that the first stanza acts as an eye-opener of the poet’s attempt to compare his lover with summer. He goes on to state why his lover is better. Stanzas 1-6 give a solid reason as to why one cannot compare his lover to summer. Though summer appears to be beautiful, it is not constant and can be very disappointing if solely relied upon. It also does not last as long as his lover’s beauty would.

The stanzas give detailed answers to his rhetorical question posed at the beginning of the poem. The poet’s praises and awe are well expressed in these stanzas by revealing all the beautiful qualities seized by his mistress. Her beauty is constant and can neither be shaken by strong winds nor can it become unpredictable like the hot sun. It doesn’t waiver in the eyes of the beholder like the clouds swallow the summer hence losing its beauty.

Stanzas 7-14 indicates everlasting beauty, which he says cannot be claimed by anything, not even a natural calamity such as death. In the conclusion of the Sonnet 18 , W. Shakespeare admits that ‘Every fair from fair sometime decline,’ he makes his mistress’s beauty an exception by claiming that her youthful nature will never fade (Shakespeare 7). Interestingly, the author takes a different twist in the ending when he no longer compares the beauty to the summer but rather to the immortality of his poems (Shakespeare 14).

The poem features an affectionate mood portrayed by the poet throughout the poem. The tone of the Sonnet 18 is that of the romantic intimacy of a young man intrigued by a woman’s beauty. The mood and the tone, therefore, play a significant role in describing the setting of the poem.

The poet is sitting in a field on a warm summer day (Shakespeare 1). Though the weather seems ideal, it is breezy, with rough winds’ shaking the buds of May’ (Shakespeare 3). That is an indication that the poet is sitting under a tree enjoying the scenery on a hot afternoon. The poet enjoys the unpredictable weather till the clouds swallow the sun, and as he states, ‘By chance or nature’s changing course untrimm’ d,’ nature always seems to take its course during sunset and sunrise (Shakespeare 8).

The poet uses metaphor and personification to bring life to the Sonnet 18 . For example, he uses figurative speech to presume change, fate, and immortality. He speaks of how he will internally save his lover’s beauty from fading from the face of the earth (Shakespeare 12). ‘Summer’ as a literary device is used to mean the life of the mistress that should be safe from fate. Fate, in this case, is portrayed by the use of scorching sun and rough winds.

The imagery of the Sonnet 18 includes personified death and rough winds. The poet has even gone further to label the buds as ‘darling’ (Shakespeare 3). Death serves as a supervisor of ‘its shade,’ which is a metaphor for ‘after life’ (Shakespeare 11). All these actions are related to human beings. ‘Eternal lines to lines though growest’ (Shakespeare 12) is a praise of the poet’s poems which he says will last forever so long as ‘men can breathe or eyes can see,’ a metaphor symbolizing ‘poet lovers’ will be there to read them (Shakespeare 13).

He views beauty as an art that cannot diminish despite all the hurdles in life. However, beauty does not apply to everything but only to images that appeal more to the eyes of the beholder than nature itself. That kind of beauty is immortal and surpasses all tribulations caused by nature itself.

This essay on the Sonnet 18 by Shakespeare analyzed the poem’s tone, imagery, meaning, and main themes. In summary, the poet is fascinated by his mistress’s beauty, such that he cannot imagine that very beauty fading from his eyes. He argues that beauty is constant and, unlike a ‘summer day,’ is not affected by any changes or fate at all. He, however, seems to be praising his poem as characterized at the end of the poem, where he only compares the everlasting beauty to his text. The Sonnet eighteen’s conclusion indicates that beauty can only end only when the poem ceases to exist.

Shakespeare, William. “ Shakespeare Sonnet 18. ” Shakespeare Sonnets . 1564. Web.

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IvyPanda. (2018, October 11). William Shakespeare's Sonnet 18 Analysis: Tone, Imagery, Symbolism, and More. https://ivypanda.com/essays/shakespeares-sonnet-18/

"William Shakespeare's Sonnet 18 Analysis: Tone, Imagery, Symbolism, and More." IvyPanda , 11 Oct. 2018, ivypanda.com/essays/shakespeares-sonnet-18/.

IvyPanda . (2018) 'William Shakespeare's Sonnet 18 Analysis: Tone, Imagery, Symbolism, and More'. 11 October.

IvyPanda . 2018. "William Shakespeare's Sonnet 18 Analysis: Tone, Imagery, Symbolism, and More." October 11, 2018. https://ivypanda.com/essays/shakespeares-sonnet-18/.

1. IvyPanda . "William Shakespeare's Sonnet 18 Analysis: Tone, Imagery, Symbolism, and More." October 11, 2018. https://ivypanda.com/essays/shakespeares-sonnet-18/.

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Shakespeare's sonnets.

Charles Robinson, from  The Songs and Sonnets of William Shakespeare,  color frontispiece, 1915. Folger Shakespeare Library.

Introduction to the Sonnets

Few collections of poems—indeed, few literary works in general—intrigue, challenge, tantalize, and reward as do Shakespeare’s Sonnets. Almost all of them love poems, the Sonnets philosophize, celebrate, attack, plead, and express pain, longing, and despair, all in a tone of voice that rarely rises above a reflective murmur, all spoken as if in an inner monologue or dialogue, and all within the tight structure of the English sonnet form.

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Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day? Thou art more lovely and more temperate. Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May, And summer’s lease hath all too short a date.

— Sonnet 18, lines 1–4

When my love swears that she is made of truth I do believe her though I know she lies

— Sonnet 138, lines 1–2

Shakespeare’s Sonnets in our collection

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Essays and resources from The Folger Shakespeare

Shakespeare’s sonnets.

Learn more about Shakespeare, his Sonnets, their language, and their history from the experts behind our edition.

Shakespeare’s Life An essay about Shakespeare and the time in which he lived

About Shakespeare’s Sonnets An introduction to the themes and interpretations of the Sonnets

Reading Shakespeare’s Language A guide for understanding Shakespeare’s words, sentences, and poetic techniques

An Introduction to This Text A description of the publishing history of the Sonnets and our editors’ approach to this edition

Textual Notes A record of the variants in the early printings of this text

Appendix of Intertextual Material Select excerpts from other works that Shakespeare references

A Modern Perspective An essay by Lynne Magnusson

Further Reading Suggestions from our experts on where to learn more

Index of First Lines A list of the first lines of the Sonnets

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Shakespeare’s Sonnets were first printed in 1609 in a quarto published by Thomas Thorpe. That edition is generally considered the authoritative text, and modern editors usually follow it as their source. Two of the poems in the 1609 sonnets (Sonnets 138 and 144) were published in the 1599 collection  The Passionate Pilgrim ; although the entire volume was attributed to Shakespeare, the collection is in fact a miscellany of poems by different authors. Some scholars, however, believe that the two sonnets by Shakespeare in that volume represent versions closer to Shakespeare’s manuscript than the 1609 versions. The sonnets were republished in 1640 by John Benson in a form very different from the 1609 collection, including a different order and individually titled poems. The Folger edition of the sonnets, like that of other modern editions, follows the 1609 text.

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A Summary and Analysis of Shakespeare’s Sonnet 18

By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)

‘Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?’ is one of the most famous opening lines in all of literature. In this post, we’re going to look beyond that opening line, and the poem’s reputation, and attempt a short summary and analysis of Sonnet 18 in terms of its language, meaning, and themes. The poem represents a bold and decisive step forward in the sequence of Sonnets as we read them.

For the first time, the key to the Fair Youth’s immortality lies not in procreation (as it had been in the previous 17 sonnets) but in Shakespeare’s own verse. But what is William Shakespeare’s Sonnet 18 actually saying? And did the poet have personal experience of the young man to whom the sonnet is addressed, or is the poem a mere product of the imagination, a fine conceit?

Most of the poems we write about here on Interesting Literature involve introducing the unfamiliar: we take a poem that we think has something curious and little-known about it, and try to highlight that feature, or interpretation.

But with ‘Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?’ we have almost the opposite problem: we’re trying to take a very well-known poem and de -familiarise it, and try to see it as though we’re coming across it for the first time. This is by no means an easy task, so we’ll begin with a summary.

Sonnet 18: summary

First, then, that summary of Sonnet 18, beginning with that opening question, which sounds almost like a dare or a challenge, nonchalantly offered up: ‘Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?’

Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day? Thou art more lovely and more temperate: Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May, And summer’s lease hath all too short a date:

Shakespeare asks the addressee of the sonnet – who is probably the same young man, or ‘Fair Youth’, to whom the other early sonnets are also addressed – whether he should compare him to a summery day. He goes on to remark that the young man is lovelier, and more gentle and dependably constant.

After all, in May (which, in Shakespeare’s time, was considered a bona fide part of summer ) rough winds often shake the beloved flowers of the season (thus proving the Bard’s point that summer is less ‘temperate’ than the young man).

What’s more, summer is over all too quickly: its ‘lease’ – a legal term – soon runs out. We all know this to be true, when September rolls round, the nights start drawing in, and we get that sinking ‘back to school’ feeling.

Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines, And often is his gold complexion dimmed, And every fair from fair sometime declines, By chance, or nature’s changing course untrimmed:

In lines 5-8, Shakespeare continues his analysis of the ways in which the young man is better than a summer’s day: sometimes the sun (‘the eye of heaven’) shines too brightly (i.e. the weather is just too hot, unbearably so), and, conversely, sometimes the sun is ‘dimmed’ or hidden by clouds.

And every lovely or beautiful thing (‘fair’ here in ‘every fair’ is used as a noun, i.e. ‘every fair thing’), even the summer, sometimes drops a little below its best, either randomly or through the march of nature (which changes and in time ages every living thing).

But thy eternal summer shall not fade, Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st, Nor shall death brag thou wander’st in his shade, When in eternal lines to time thou grow’st

In lines 9-12, Shakespeare continues the ‘Youth vs. summer’ motif, arguing that the young man’s ‘eternal summer’, or prime, will not fade; nor will the Youth’s ‘eternal summer’ lose its hold on the beauty the young man owns (‘ow’st’).

Nor will Death, the Grim Reaper, be able to boast that the young man walks in the shadow of death, not when the youth grows, not towards death (like a growing or lengthening shadow) but towards immortality, thanks to the ‘eternal lines’ of Shakespeare’s verse which will guarantee that he will live forever.

So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see, So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

In his concluding couplet, Shakespeare states that as long as the human race continues to exist, and read poetry, Shakespeare’s poem (‘this’) survives, and continues to ‘give life’ to the young man through keeping his memory alive.

Sonnet 18: analysis

Sonnet 18 is a curious poem to analyse when it’s set in the context of the previous sonnets. It’s the first poem that doesn’t exhort the Fair Youth to marry and have children: we’ve left the ‘Procreation Sonnets’ behind.

In the last few sonnets, Shakespeare has begun to introduce the idea that his poetry might provide an alternative ‘immortality’ for the young man, though in those earlier sonnets Shakespeare’s verse has been deemed an inferior way of securing the young man’s immortality when placed next to the idea of leaving offspring.

In Sonnet 18, right from the confident strut of ‘Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?’ onwards, Shakespeare is sure that his poetry will guarantee the young man his immortality after all.

There is an easy music to the poem, set up by that opening line: look at repetition of ‘summer’ and ‘some’, which strikes us as natural and not contrived, unlike some of the effects Shakespeare had created in the earlier sonnets: ‘summer’s day’, ‘summer’s lease’, ‘Sometime too hot’, ‘sometime declines’, ‘eternal summer’.

This reinforces the inferiority of the summer with its changeability but also its brevity (‘sometime’ in Shakespeare’s time meant not only ‘sometimes’, suggesting variability and inconstancy, but also ‘once’ or ‘formerly’, suggesting something that is over).

In terms of imagery, the reference to Death bragging ‘thou wander’st in his shade’, as well as calling up the words from the 23rd Psalm (‘Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death’), also fits neatly into the poem’s broader use of summer/sun imagery.

‘When in eternal lines to time thou grow’st’: it’s worth observing the suggestion of self-referentiality here, with ‘lines’ summoning the lines of Shakespeare’s verse. In such an analysis, then, ‘eternal lines’ prefigure Shakespeare’s own immortal lines of poetry, designed to give immortality to the poem’s addressee, the Fair Youth.

This is significant, following Booth, if we wish to analysis Sonnet 18 (or ‘Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?’ if you’d prefer) in the context of the preceding sonnets, which had been concerned with procreation.

We cannot be sure who arranged the sonnets into the order in which they were printed in 1609 (in the first full printing of the poems, featuring that enigmatic dedication to ‘Mr W. H. ’), but it is suggestive that Sonnet 18, in which Shakespeare proudly announces his intention of immortalising the Fair Youth with his pen, follows a series of sonnets in which Shakespeare’s pen had urged the Fair Youth to marry and sire offspring as his one chance of immortality.

Now, through the power of his poetry, William Shakespeare the writer is offering the young man another way of becoming immortal.

Sonnet 18 has undoubtedly become a favourite love poem in the language because its message and meaning are relatively easy to decipher and analyse.

Its opening line has perhaps eclipsed the rest of the poem to the degree that we have lost sight of the precise argument Shakespeare is making in seeking to compare the Youth to a summer’s day, as well as the broader context of the rest of the Sonnets and the implications this has for our interpretation of Sonnet 18.

The poem reveals a new confidence in Shakespeare’s approach to the Sonnets, and in the ensuing sonnets he will take this even further.

Continue your exploration of Shakespeare’s Sonnets with our summary and analysis of Sonnet 19  – or, if you’d prefer, skip ahead to the more famous Sonnet 20 or even the much-quoted Sonnet 116 . Alternatively, discover some curious facts behind some of Shakespeare’s greatest plays , our list of misconceptions about Shakespeare’s life , or check out our top tips for essay-writing .

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8 thoughts on “A Summary and Analysis of Shakespeare’s Sonnet 18”

My freshmen and sophomores freak when I reveal that Shakespeare wrote this to a young man. They settle down once I explain how “the fair youth” probably sponsored Shakespeare and in return he paid tribute to his patron.

I think we can safely conclude Shakespeare was well aware of his own outstanding genius from the last couplet.

Reblogged this on MorgEn Bailey – Creative Writing Guru and commented: As much of England is covered in frost, I thought I’d share with you something of a warmer nature…

Have you done sonnet 129? Quite stark in its dissection of self-centred love (lust).

• Pingback: A Short Analysis of Shakespeare’s Sonnet 18: ‘Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?’ — Interesting Literature | Phil Slattery Art

The very strange Dedication to the sonnets is signed TT and the first letter of the first 5 lines spells TTMAP (i.e. it is an acrostic – very popular at the the time). We believe the Dedication is a “map” of the sonnets. When the dedication is laid out in a grid acrostic words are formed which “map” to Sonnet numbers. Sonnet 18 (the Summer sonnet) maps to L’Ete – the French word for Summer. https://leanpub.com/themap

• Pingback: 10 Classic Summer Poems Everyone Should Read | Interesting Literature
• Pingback: A Short Analysis of Shakespeare’s Sonnet 12: ‘When I do count the clock’ | Interesting Literature

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Introduction

As the number of this sonnet is eighteenth, it is clear that it discusses the themes of mortality, the value of poetry, and the attainment of immortality. The speaker reflects on how every worldly entity is mortal. However, he is going to use his poetry against this enemy and win immortality for his beloved by canonizing him in his poetry. 

Literary Context

Sonnet 18 summary, first quatrain.

The poem opens with a question asked by the speaker. The speaker asks the beloved whether he should compare him to a summer day. The next line announces the comparison and says that the beloved is lovelier than a summer day. Moreover, the summer day is extreme, while the beloved is better because he is temperate. The speaker furthers this comparison and says that the darling buds sprouting in May are shaken by the forceful winds that blow in the summer. Furthermore, the lease of summer is also not very long. It is very short-lived.    

Second Quatrain

Third quatrain.

The last two lines of the sonnet describe the reason behind the immortality of the beloved’s beauty. The speaker says that as long as the human race remains here in this world, his lines will be read. With the reading of these lines, the beauty of the beloved described in these lines will remain in this world. This way, the speaker claims that he has given immortality to the beauty of the beloved.

Themes in Sonnet 18

Cruelty of nature, inevitability of death, poetry as a source of immortality.

In the last couplet of the poem, the speaker tells his beloved about his source of achieving immortality. He tells him that he has immortalized him by writing about his beauty in his poetry. He is sure that people will read his poetry even when they are long gone from this world. When they read his poetry, they will appreciate his beloved’s beauty. In this way, his beloved will remain immortal.

Sonnet 18 Literary Analysis

The next quatrain brings a few more flaws in the summer season. The speaker is weary of the two extremes of sunshine during the summer season. He uses the metaphor “the eye of heaven” to describe the sun. This use of metaphor is intended to further elevate the status of the speaker’s beloved by showing that he is even better than heavenly entities. The speaker says that the sun shines too brightly at times during the summer season.  It makes the pleasant weather a bit too hot to bear.

Rhyme Scheme

Literary devices, rhetorical question, personification, more from william shakespeare.

Macbeth: the Complex Intersection of Ambition Morality and Fate

This essay about William Shakespeare’s “Macbeth” examines the complex themes of ambition morality and fate within the play. It describes Macbeth’s transition from a noble warrior to a tyrannical ruler driven by the prophecies of the Weird Sisters and his own unchecked ambition. Lady Macbeth’s role is also highlighted as she embodies and manipulates gender norms to fulfill her desires. The essay discusses the psychological consequences of Macbeth’s actions including his guilt and paranoia which lead to his tragic downfall. Themes of fate versus free will are explored through the characters’ reactions to the witches’ ambiguous prophecies. Additionally the play’s use of natural and supernatural elements is discussed emphasizing how personal corruption is mirrored by cosmic disorder. The essay concludes by reflecting on the moral lessons of the play and its relevance to contemporary issues of power and ethics.

How it works

William Shakespeare’s “Macbeth” is a profound exploration of the dark side of ambition and the consequences of unethical behavior wrapped within a dramatic and thrilling narrative. This tragic play steeped in witchcraft prophecy and murder offers a timeless analysis of the human condition and the psychological effects of power and guilt.

“Macbeth” begins with the titular character in a place of honor and valor having just defeated the forces of invasion and rebellion against King Duncan of Scotland. His encounter with the three Weird Sisters on the desolate heath marks a turning point not only in the plot but in his moral landscape.

The witches prophesy that Macbeth will become king planting the seeds of ambition and desire for power. Shakespeare brilliantly illustrates how Macbeth initially a loyal and noble warrior is led astray by his aspirations and the manipulations of his wife Lady Macbeth.

Equally complicated and motivated by her own goals is Lady Macbeth. She defies the prevailing gender conventions of the era by demonstrating willpower and strength even greater than her husband’s. She is willing to give up all things feminine in order to fulfill her wants as seen by her well-known plea to the spirits to “unsex me here” and fill her with malice. This scene is significant because it emphasizes how gender roles and the dynamics of power inside a marriage are explored in the play.

The drama explores Macbeth’s psychological suffering as he ascends to the throne through regicide. The story culminates in a depressing realization as the remorse he feels for what he did causes him to experience psychosis and disturbing visions. Shakespeare skillfully discusses the social and psychological effects of unchecked ambition by using Macbeth’s spiral into madness. At the blood-stained blade hallucination and later when Banquo’s ghost appears at the supper Macbeth is forced to face the moral consequences of his actions.

The theme of fate versus free will also pervades the narrative. While the witches’ prophecies set Macbeth on the path to kingship it is his own actions—spurred by his interpretation of their words—that seal his doom. This interplay raises questions about predetermination and the extent of free will themes that resonate deeply with audiences even today. The prophecies ambiguous and cunning can be seen as self-fulfilling driven by Macbeth’s choices rather than any true destiny.

Moreover the natural and supernatural elements of the play serve to enhance its ominous atmosphere. The constant references to darkness storms and the eerie appearances of the witches connect the turmoil within Macbeth to the cosmic disorder he creates. This linkage between the moral and natural realms is a common element in Shakespearean tragedies where personal actions disrupt the broader order of the universe.

“Macbeth” is a stark reminder of the perils of excessive ambition and moral compromise. The play’s conclusion with Macbeth defeated and the rightful order restored serves as a cathartic resolution of the chaos unleashed by his actions. Yet the resolution also invites reflection on the cycle of power and its consequences suggesting that ambition unchecked by ethical considerations leads invariably to ruin.

Shakespeare’s “Macbeth” offers a thought-provoking reflection on the nature of human ambition and the intricacies of the human psyche in addition to being an entertaining play. The drama which continues to be a mainstay of English literature offers perspectives that are still applicable in the modern period. Its depiction of a tyrant’s ascent and descent is nevertheless a potent meditation on the contradictions in human nature and the never-ending struggle between good and evil.

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Macbeth: The Complex Intersection of Ambition Morality and Fate. (2024, Jul 06). Retrieved from https://papersowl.com/examples/macbeth-the-complex-intersection-of-ambition-morality-and-fate/

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"Macbeth: The Complex Intersection of Ambition Morality and Fate," PapersOwl.com , 06-Jul-2024. [Online]. Available: https://papersowl.com/examples/macbeth-the-complex-intersection-of-ambition-morality-and-fate/. [Accessed: 10-Jul-2024]

PapersOwl.com. (2024). Macbeth: The Complex Intersection of Ambition Morality and Fate . [Online]. Available at: https://papersowl.com/examples/macbeth-the-complex-intersection-of-ambition-morality-and-fate/ [Accessed: 10-Jul-2024]

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Sonnets of Shakespeares Ghost (Unabridged‪)‬

Publisher description.

In the hallowed halls of literature, where the echoes of Shakespeare's immortal words still linger, a new voice emerges from the shadows. "Sonnets of Shakespeare's Ghost" by Thomas George Tucker is a captivating collection of sonnets that pays homage to the Bard while exploring themes of love, loss, and the enduring power of the written word. With each sonnet, Tucker channels the spirit of Shakespeare, capturing the essence of his language and the depth of his emotions. Prepare to be transported to a realm where the boundaries between past and present blur, and the timeless beauty of poetry reigns supreme.