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“Sonnet 18”: Interpretation, formal features and meaning of the poem

The love poem “Sonnet 18”1 is written by William Shakespeare and is a Shakespearean
sonnet. A Shakespearian sonnet has an iambic pentameter form and follows a regular rhyme
scheme. The rhyme scheme in “Sonnet 18” can be divided into three quatrains followed by a
couplet. Lines 1 through 12 follows an ABAB rhyme scheme. In the final two lines, the
rhyme scheme shifts where the two lines rhyme with each other. These final two lines are the
poem`s volta or turn. In the volta of a sonnet, the poet often changes their mind and takes an
opposing viewpoint or complicates the argument the poem has so far made.

“Sonnet 18” follows the traditional rhyme scheme of a Shakespearean sonnet. In the
first 2 lines, Shakespeare introduces the separate rhymes of “day” and “temperate”; which is
completed in line 3 and 4. The pattern continues throughout line 12. Each set of 4 lines is its
own sonic unit. In the final couplet, however, the rhyme scheme shifts, Shakespeare
introduces a rhyme in line 13 and completes it immediately in line 14. The final lines are thus
their own sonic unit. This reflects that this couplet brings closure to the poem and provides a
sort of answer to the riddle posed by the prior lines. Shakespeare does frequently rhyme single
syllable words with multi-syllable words (i.e. “temperate” and “date”) However, the strong
meter of the poem keeps the reader from hearing this as a moment of syncopation or rhythmic
disturbance. “Sonnet 18” is entirely end-stopped. This underlines how organised the poem is –
and how confident the speaker is. Almost all of his thoughts are precisely fitted into the size
of a pentameter line, resulting in a pleasing, steady rhythm while reading the poem that allows
the speaker to focus on his argument.

The first four lines of “Sonnet 18” establishes the broad concern of the poem and some
of its stylistic features. The first line of the poem begins with an aporia; a rhetorical question
“Shall I compare thee to a summer`s day?” (line 1) Needless to say, the speaker is not
experiencing a real dilemma about how appropriate the metaphor is. Instead, posing the
question allows him to show why the metaphor fails – and why the poem itself is a better
image of the young man`s eternal beauty. (based on contextual clues in the surrounding
poems, most scholars assume that the person addressed in this sonnet is a young man,

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Noggle, James. 2018. The Norton Anthology Of English Literature. 10th ed. New York: Norton, p.
724-725
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possibly of a higher social standing than the poet) the speaker asks whether he should
compare his beloved, addressed directly as “thee”, to a summer`s day. In posing this question,
the speaker is playing on a Renaissance proverb: “as good as there best is” The speaker is
asking, in other words, whether it would appropriate to compare the young man to something
widely regarded as the best and most beautiful thing possible.

In line 2-4, the speaker offers a series of reasons why the comparison is inappropriate.
“Thou art more lovely and temperate” (line 2) – the young man is more beautiful than a
summer`s day. His beauty exceeds a proverbially perfect thing. He is more "lovely" and less
extreme. In contrast to the heat of a summer's day, he is "temperate": mild and pleasant. The
word "temperate" is particularly suggestive since it derives from the Latin word tempus —
meaning a "period of time." The echo of the Latin word suggests an emerging concern in the
poem with time itself and its effects: aging, decay, and death.

In “Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May, and summer`s lease hath all to
short a date” (line 3-4) Shakespeare notes that the summer is itself temporally limited. It
emerges from spring and falls into winter. Thus, the buds of beautiful flowers are shaken by
"Rough winds," which remind one of the winters that has been and the winter to come. The
perfection has a short lease: it endures only for a brief moment. This concern with time itself
increasingly occupies the poem—and becomes its central challenge as the speaker searches
for a metaphor or simile that does not imply that his beloved will decay and die. Throughout
the poem, the speaker juxtaposes nature`s beauty with its ugliness: the “darling buds of May”
lie side by side with “rough winds”; These juxtapositions allow the speaker to show why the
traditional cliches of love poetry fail to adequately capture the young man.

The speaker occasionally personifies the natural world in the poem. For example
“Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines” (line 5) he compares the sun to a part of the
human body, an “eye”. The speaker is comfortable thinking about the natural world in terms
of the physical (and psychic) components of the human being. Yet the speaker also clearly
resists personification at certain points. The poems opening rhetorical question might be
understood as a moment where the speaker pauses to consider whether he should personify a
summer`s day.

In lines five and “And often is his gold complexion dimmed” (line 6), the speaker
continues to ask whether the usual clichés of love poetry can adequately capture his beloved's
beauty. Here he shifts from comparing the young man to a summer's day and instead
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compares him to the "eye of heaven"—that is, the sun. The sun is often invoked in
Renaissance love poetry as a symbol of extraordinary beauty and brilliance. Moreover, the
word "sun" sounds a lot like the word "son." In a culture obsessed with puns—and which did
not yet have standardized spellings—the two words often blend together: the brightness of the
sun figuring the brilliance and centrality of Christ himself. The speaker alludes to this
tradition by describing the sun here as the "eye of heaven," associating its place in the sky
with the place to which Christ ascends after his crucifixion. However, the speaker is once
again unhappy with this traditional metaphor. He notes that the sun is itself imperfect:
sometimes it's too hot. Often, it's hidden behind clouds, "his gold complexion dimmed."(line
6) Once again, the speaker's concern is with time. The sun is, sometimes, as perfect as people
claim, but it's not always that perfect. To compare the young man to the sun is thus to admit
that he might change, that his beauty might be obscured. The speaker's underlying argument
thus begins to become clear, and his complaint is consistent throughout: the traditional
metaphors that his culture offers for describing beauty all imply that beauty is itself
impermanent. One can discern a surprising and powerful claim in this argument: the young
man's beauty is not impermanent. It will somehow survive aging, decay, and death.

In “And every fair from fair sometime declines” (line 7), and “by chance or nature`s
changing course untrimmed” (line 8) the speaker provides a thesis statement for the poem this
far, everything "fair" eventually stops being fair: it decays, declines, becomes ugly. The
speaker specifies two reasons: first, chance. Sometimes, he suggests, people are randomly
injured or disfigured. One might hope to avoid such accidents. His second reason, though,
allows for no escape. Much of the decay and death he laments comes from nature itself, its
"changing course untrimm'd." and in line 8 a clarification why “every fair” eventually
“declines” summary of the poem's argument so far.

The phrase is complex and worth pausing over. The words "changing course"(line 8)
here refer to the cycles of birth, growth, and decay that characterize almost all-natural
phenomena: from the changing seasons to the lives of all organisms, from the lowliest plants
to the most beautiful human beings. The word "untrimm'd" means, in this context, stripped of
ornament. The speaker suggests that ornaments—including poetic ornaments like metaphor
and simile—serve to obscure the basic facts of life: that everything that's born will eventually
die. In attacking the basic metaphors and similes of love poetry, he hopes to show his readers
what "nature's changing course" looks like—and it doesn't look good. Nature's changing
course will untrim every beauty of his ornaments.
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In the first 8 lines of the poem, the speaker deploys a series of clichés which is found
to insufficiently describe his beloved. The reason is simple: these clichés suggest that the
young man's beauty is impermanent, subject to change and decay. In lines 9-12, the speaker
insists that the young man's beauty is eternal. Compared to summer, which passes into fall,
the young man's summer never ends. Compared to "every fair" which "from fair sometime
declines," the young man will not lose possession of his fairness: he owns it forever. Even
death cannot claim the young man: in “Nor shall death brag thou wander`st in his shade” (line
11) the speaker goes so far as to say that the death will never be able to brag about capturing
the young man; he will never wander in death's "shade"—a reference to the biblical valley of
the shadow of death. (Moreover, the association of death with shade completes the metaphors
introduced in lines 1-6, which associate beauty with light, summer, and day; death, implicitly,
is darkness, winter, and night).

These lines are not clear on why the young man is somehow exempt from death and
decay, but the 12th line provides a clarification. The young man escapes from death because he
lives in the poet's "eternal lines." As the speaker turns away from the traditional tropes of love
poetry, he discovers a radically new analogy: the young man's eternal beauty is like the
eternal life of poetry itself.

Some scholars have seen this as an important break in the history of poetry—a
moment where poetry begins to reflect on and talk about itself and its own powers. Indeed, as
the speaker compares the young man and his own poem, his argument slips into circularity.
The young man's beauty may be eternal, but it is only eternal because of the poem. If the
speaker doesn't consecrate his poem to the young man's beauty, the young man will wander in
death's shade. The poem's action is circular, even recursive: it constructs the object that it
praises. In this sense, one might wonder what the poem is actually praising here. While the
poem is ostensibly about how beautiful the young man is, it may actually be about how
powerful and important the poem itself is.

“Sonnet 18” contains a number of alliterations, these play of sound binds together
Shakespeare`s lines: for example, the repeated sh sound in “shall”, “shade” in (Nor shall death
brag thou wander`st in his shade” (line 11) Shakespeare`s alliterations often reinforce the
content of the poem. For example, “By chance or nature`s changing course untrimmed” (line
8) The connected sounds of “chance” and “changing” underscore the impermanence of the
natural world. And in “So long lives this, and this gives life to thee” (line 14), “lives” and
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“life” underline the connection between the eternal life of the poem and the young man`s
eternal life.

In the volta of the poem, the speaker summarises the argument he has built in the
previous four lines. He does so in presumptuous terms; as long as people continue to read his
poem, the young man will continue to live. He also claims “So long as men can breathe or
eyes can see” (line 13) that people will read this poem as long as there are people breathing
and reading. The speaker has an almost absurd faith in the power of his own poetry to endure,
to continue to interest readers far into the future. Moreover, his faith in the power of his poem
betrays some interesting assumptions about poetry itself. He assumes, for instance, that future
readers will see what he sees in the poem: the young man's beauty, perfectly preserved. He
does not allow the possibility that the poem itself will change—either because it is damaged
or because new readers in new historical contexts will see it differently than he does. He does
not admit the possibility that the poem will be forgotten. In this sense, the speaker may be said
to exclude his readers from the process of interpreting the poem. Of course, one might
imagine a different vision of the poem and its relation to its future readers: a vision that
invites readers into the poem and allows them to remake it in their own images.

The couplet of the poem “So long as men can breathe or eyes can see” (line 13) and
“so long this, and this gives live to thee” (line 14) contains three different poetic devices,
which have yet not been mentioned; anaphora, euphony and diacope. Line 13 and 14 both
begins with the same phrase “so long”, the repeated phrase underlines the conceptual
continuity between the ideal expressed in these lines. The poem survives as long as “men can
breathe, and eyes can see” This is an ambitious, even pretentious claim: Shakespeare imagines
that readers will always be interested in his poem. The couplet has a number of euphonic
moments, lines 13 and 14 make use of muffled, soft consonant sounds like l, m and th –
giving the line a smooth, musical quality that helps the line flow of the tongue easily. As such,
it stands in contrast to some of the poem`s more dissonant moment, where hard, percussive
consonants like r, d and b interrupt the musical flow of Shakespeare`s verse. On first read,
line 14 feels almost redundant. The first half of the line “so long lives this” repeats almost
exactly in its second half “and gives life to thee”. The same words are used close together and
in almost the same sense in an instance of diacope that underlies the argument the speaker is
making. As the poem comes to an end, it becomes difficult to distinguish the young man`s life
and the poems life.
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“Sonnet 18” is essentially a love poem, though the object of its affection is not as
straightforward as it may first seem. The speaker initially tries to find an appropriate metaphor
to describe his beloved (traditionally believed to be a young man) – suggesting that he might
be compared to a summer`s day, the sun, or “the darling buds of May”. Yet as the speaker
searches for a metaphor that will adequately reflect his beloved`s beauty, he realises that none
will work because all imply inevitable decline or death. When the first eight lines of the poem
document failure of poetry`s traditional resources to capture the young man`s beauty, the final
six lines argue that the young man`s eternal beauty is best compared to the poem itself. In a
strikingly circular motion, it is this very sonnet that both reflects and preserves the young
man`s beauty. “Sonnet 18” can thus be read as honouring not simply to the speaker`s beloved
but also to the power of poetry itself, which the speaker argues, is a means to eternal life.

Bibliography:

Noggle, James. 2018. The Norton Anthology Of English Literature. 10th ed. New York: Norton.