William Shakespeare's Sonnet 18 is part of a group of 126 sonnets
Shakespeare wrote that are addressed to a young man of great beauty and promise.
In this group of sonnets, the speaker urges the young man to marry and perpetuate
his virtues through children, and warns him about the destructive power of time,
age, and moral weakness. Sonnet 18 focuses on the beauty of the young man, and
how beauty fades, but his beauty will not because it will be remembered by
Shakespeare starts the poem with a metaphoric question in line one asking if
he should compare the man to a summer's day. This asks if he should compare the
beauty of a summer's day to the beauty of the young man about whom
Shakespeare is writing. Line two of this poem states "Thou art more lovely and
more temperate." Temperate is used as a synonym for moderate by the author. In
line two the speaker is describing the man as more lovely and more moderate than
a summer's day. This emphasizes the man's beauty and how the man is viewed by
the speaker. Line three, "Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May," tells
why the man's beauty is greater than that of a summer's day. Shakespeare uses
"rough winds" to symbolize imperfections. The speaker is implying that there are
no imperfections in the young man, but there are in the summer, so the man cannot
be compared to a summer's day. In line four the speaker adds to this thought by
saying that the summer also does not last as long as the man's beauty therefore it
cannot be compared to it. Line five states another imperfection of the summer.
Shakespeare uses "the eye of heaven" as a metaphor in this line to describe the
sun. In line six Shakespeare uses the phrase "gold complexion dimmed" to
describe the sun again which means that sometimes the sun is not hot enough, and
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