SONNET 18

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?

Thou art more lovely and more temperate:

Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,

And summer's lease hath all too short a date:

Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,

And often is his gold complexion dimm'd;

And every fair from fair sometime declines,

By chance, or nature's changing course, untrimm'd;

But thy eternal summer shall not fade

Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st;

Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st in his shade,

When in eternal lines to time thou grow'st;

So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,

So long lives this, and this gives life to thee. 

                                        (W. Shakespeare)

Considering the title the reader can discover that the poem belongs to a collection of sonnet by Shakespeare, Indeed the title is the same as the first line.

Just from the structure, the poem is organized as a typical Shakespearian sonnet, indeed it is composed by three quatrains which describe different aspects of the same problem, and the final couplet.

The poet asks if he can compare his love to a summer's day, but he realizes that his love is more lovable because  he is not shaken by violent winds, or he isn’t burned in the sun by the excessive heat, and its sweetness lasts longer than summer, which died after a short time. Every beauty is destined to disappear and die because of  the fate or the natural cycle, but his love , compared to the eternal summer , will not go away or will not lose its beauty or wander the shadow of death, because poetry will give him immortality.

Summer is a stereotype of beauty, it is usually considered the best season of the year.  The Fair Youth is compared to summer’s day for this reason. But the poet notices that this comparison isn’t right indeed he tells that the Fair youth is more lovable than summer’s day, in addition  the speaking voice tells that the summer is disrupted by winds and  excessive heat. This concept is reinforced by the alliteration of the sound “d”. The sound “d” is a dental sound.

Therefore the poet tells that the Summer, contrarily by the Fair youth, is a limited period of the year, it isn’t infinite, and ass all things it is destinated to finish or die. In the nature everything is destinated to lose  its beauty because of the aging, the passage of time or the misfortune. Instead the poet considers the Fair Youth’s beauty immortal, it is infinite thanks to the sonnet which conserves intact the memories of his sweetness and beauty. For this reason he is compares to an eternal summer.