Elizabethan Poetry Journal

Summary: In Shakespeare's sonnet 18 he starts of the poem with the question, “shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?” Then the author explains why he shouldn’t because unlike the summer’s day that eventually fades away, her beauty and “eternal summer shall not fade.” Not even death can hide her beauty because “so long as men can breathe, or eyes can see, so long lives this, and this gives life to thee.”

1) Metaphor- “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?” Shakespeare compares his love to a summer’s day and by doing so, an image of a beautiful, warm day with the flowers in bloom and the birds chirping in the reader’s mind along with an attractive woman. However a question is raised, how can Shakespeare compare the woman to a summer’s day?

2) Personification - “Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines, and often is his gold complexion dimmed.” The author’s use of the words “eye” and “complexion,” beautifully describes the sun instead of just saying that “sometimes the sun is to hot or that it’s rays are often dimmed.”

3) Imagery- “Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May” and ... “often is his gold complexion dimmed.” When Shakespeare uses t

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There are many other things that apply to Carpe Diem. However love is a powerful thing that can alter the natural.

2) Metaphor/Simile- “My love is like ice , and I to fire” Spenser uses the analogy of fire and ice to show love’s Irony and how it can change the normal course of nature. ” He chose these words to describe the way her hair is and it plants an image in the readers mind of a head of “wires”. It makes me (the reader) get a sense that when two people really love one another that they can do anything and that love conquers all. Shakespeare wants the image of his love to live forever.

Personal Interpretation: In sonnet 130, Shakespeare explains to his audience that love is not what’s on the outside but what’s on the inside that counts.

Literary Devices:

1) Illusions- “love you ten years before the flood” an illusion to the bible about Noah’s arch. We will always be unsatisfied and want what somebody else has for the fun of the game but once we get it, it’s thrown away because the challenge is lost. That is why “ a summer’s day” can not compare to her because it is not everlasting. People who rush into marriage without knowing their mate fully are more likely to divorce and the cycle continues.

2) imagery- “As stiff twin compasses” He uses the compass to show that his love is the constant middle and he off on the side but always return to the middle. We always want what we can’t have and once we have it we want something else!

Personal Interpretation: Amoretti to me is the way of most humans. ”

Literary Devices:

1) Simile- “My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun:” Shakespeare uses a comparison using like or as all through out the poem to show what his mistress is not similar too.

Approximate Word count = 2278
Approximate Pages = 9 (250 words per page double spaced)

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