Shall I Compare Thee by William Shakespeare- Essay

Shall I Compare Thee

             “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day” is a sonnet by William Shakespeare. This is his 18^th among 154 sonnets. With the renowned writing style and techniques, Shakespeare has this love poem remarkable.

            The title “Shall I compare Thee to a Summer’s Day” partially conveys the theme of the appreciation of beauty, and the sense of falling in love. The speaker begins the poem  by asking whether he should compare the lady to a summer day. He says that his beloved is lovely which is conveyed through words like ‘warm, fair, sunny and temperate’. Some critics argue that this poem is addressed to his beloved patron Earl of Southampton.

Next, the poet lists the reasons why summer is not all that great. The winds shake the buds that emerged in Spring, summer ends too quickly, and the sun can get too hot or be obscured by clouds. Everything beautiful fades by chance or by nature’s inevitable changes. But, he argues that his happy, beautiful years will not go away. Like this, her beauty also will not fade away. Moreover, death will never be able to take the beloved, since the beloved exists in the eternal lines of this poetry. The speaker concludes that as long as humans exist, his writing will live on. Like this his love also will survive forever.

            This sonnet follows the rhyme scheme of ‘abab cdcd efef gg’. Shakespeare has used personifications like “golden complexion”, ‘eye of heaven’ to convey the meaning effectively. The relevance of the theme, even today, has made the poem immortal.