SHALL I COMPARE

- Sonnet written by William Shakespeare.

- The sonnet follows the Elizabethan model. It is composed by 3 quatrains and a rhyming couplet.

- It belongs to a collection of sonnets (it is number 18).

- The addressee of the poem is Mr. W. H., a man, also called "the fair youth", whose identity has never been defined (we only know that these two letters where the initials of his name and surname).

-In the poem, the fair youth is compared to summer, but unexpectedly, the season isn't the winner of the comparison.

-Although summer is the most beautiful season of the year, it isn't so perfect when the author compares it to the man he loves: it can be rough, too short, even dangerous when the sun shines too much, and it always seems to have something in excess.

- On the other hand, Mr. W. H. turns out to be better than summer in any sense: he is lovelier, more temperate, and long-lasting than summer, and his beauty is eternal, and it doesn't fade.