ANALYSIS "SHALL I COMPARE" BY WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

This is the Sonnet 18 by William Shakespeare. By the title the reader expects the test to present a comparison made by the narrator between two people or things. The text is arranged into three quatrains in alternate rhyme and two couplet lines.
In the first quatrain the poet makes a direct comparison between the person he is referring to and a summer day. He affirms that this person has better qualities than summer because his lover is more lovely and temperate, while summer is fickle and sometimes violent. This idea is given in the third line, when the narrator recalls the image of a rough wind which hits something delicate, like a bud. Moreover summer is too short to be compared to the narrator's lover's fair.

In the second quatrain the narrator describes only the characteristics of summer's days, when weather suddenly changes in its opposite: sometimes it is too hot, sometimes it is too cloudy. Furthermore nothing is static in summer, everything changes following rules of nature, even beauty, which declines and is replaced by another beauty.

In the third quatrain the narrator focuses his attention on his lover and on her characteristics, which are diametrically different to summer's ones. His lover will be eternal, her beauty will not disappear. These sentences may seem absurd but the narrator explains them in the 12^th line, where he says this is possible thanks to his sonnet, which will be eternal and will carry his love's
memory.
The last two lines sum up these concepts and say that as long as human beings will survive, his lines will live and so will his lover.

The whole sonnet I s written using the alternate rhyme, except for the last two lines where there is a couplet rhyme. There is a large use of figure of speech. In the 2^nd, 3^rd and last stanzas there is an anaphor; alliteration and repetitions are present (e.g. lines 8, 13, 14). The language used refers to nature, seasons and time.

This sonnet is dedicated to love, but also to poetry. The narrator celebrates his lover's characteristics, compares them with the most beautiful period of the year saying she is even better, but she can survive and be eternal only associated to the beauty of poetry. If she is immortalized into the poet's lines, her memory will be immortal and perhaps, thanks to the beauty of poetry, her fair will be able to increase. In this sonnet the poet seems to say that a person or thing can be of the greatest beauty but is fated to die if not associated to the fair of poetry.

QUESTIONS PAGE 70

·        This sonnet is a "Shakespearean" sonnet, made up of three quatrains and one couplet, rhyming abab cdcd efef gg.

·        Summer is too short and changeable, sometimes it is a bit violent, when rough wind hits delicate buds, and weather constantly changes, sometimes it is too hot, while sometimes it is cloudy.

·        These lines are about the fame given by poetry, which makes people immortal.

·        In the line "this" indicates the sonnet, which celebrates the lover and makes her beauty live.

·        According to this sonnet, love cannot be compared to summer because it is greater and more beautiful and while summer is fated to end, love is eternal.

·        The sonnet makes it eternal because it records it and make it live in the people's minds until they will live.

·        I agree with the poet vision of poetry, because it makes memory and record immortal, but I think that love may be compared to summer because it is as changeable and sometimes as violent as summer, and like the sun, sometimes it can burn, while sometimes it is too fragile.