Shall I compare thee

Exercises page 139

Understanding the text

1. A. The pronoun “thee ” refers to his lover

B. The poet compares his lover to a summer day

C. - summer is perturbated by the rought winds

     - summer is too short

     - summer is sometimes too hot

     - summer’s beauty declines with the season’s change

D. The lover is better than summer bcause he wouldn’t never fade

E. The lover is make eternal by his growth

2. A. “Thou” and “Rough” are similar because of the sound and because of the meaning: indeed both mean “you”

B. The main subject of the two stanzas is summer and its traits

C. The first line of the third stanza is the linker of the passage of the object from the summer to the lover

3. A. “ Eye of heaven” stands for the life and happiness

         B. “The eternal summer” stands for the interior summe that the poets live thanks to his lover

4. A. The poet personalizes “eye of heaven” with the lover

B. The poet personalized ”Death” with the summer’s end

5. A. “eternal summer” stands for love that the poet has to his lover

B. “eternal lines” stands for the

6. As long as people have eyes to read this poem ( that is, to the end of the world), this poem will exist making the poet’s love eternal.

Textual analysis

Just taking the title, the intelligent reader expects to read a poem founded on the obligation because the title starts with the verb “shall” that means something that needs to be done; then continuing reading the title the reader will understand that the poem is a litterary work based on comparation because it compares the verb “to compare”; moreover the intelligent reader understands that this is dedicated to a specific persone, who probably is his lover to whom he calls on because at hte end of the title compares the expression “thee”, that means you.

Now, considering the layout, the reader can realise that the poemi s a sonnet, that belongs to the Shakesperian, or Elizabethian, model because it is arranged into three quatrains and two lynes. Moreover the rhymes are alternating rhyme because they follow the model “ABAB”.

Starting analizing the sonnet the reader can immediatly notice that the poem is a love sonnet because he describes his lover as a positive person at his eyes as the summer but he says that his beloved wouldn’t never change while the summer will change because of its end. Moreover he wans to underline that he will love his lover forever because looking at him, he would ever be perfect and he would peserve his merits.

The poet wants to explain his vision of his lover using examples like the changing of seasons and of the complexion.

The writer wants also to use some metaphores to explain better his situation: the first figure of speech is “the eye of heaven” and the second one is “the eternal summer” refering to his endless love to his lover.

The sonnet’s message is that love, if someone loves a person with all of his heart and that person returns, can survive foreverdespite difficulties.