SONNET XVIII

Considering the title the intelligent reader could understand that it's a sonnet because belongs to a collection thanks to Roman numeral (XVIII)

It is dedicated to a fair youth.

This sonnet doesn't follow the Petrarchan model, but the Elizabeth one. The text is organised in three quartains and a final couplet.

The first stanza opens with a dialogue between the speaking's voice and the unknown person (thee): it's a rhetorical question.

The speaking's voice asks if he could compare him to a summer's day and the poet answers that he could't because he is more lovely and more temperate than summer's day. The poet uses comparative (more and more) to underline how fairer is than summer.

In the second quartain the poet starts to change his idea about this season. There are some words highlight that summer isn't so beautiful as he believed. He underlines her flaws through some metaphores (' the eye of heaven shines' 'often is his gold complexion dimm'd' 'And every fair from fair sometimes declines ')

In the Elizabeth Age white skin was fashinable and it distinguished the rich from the poor, in this line is stressed the changing of the seasons

The last stanza is organized through semantic field of time. The poet says while summer can finish, the fair of unknown person don't have to stop. The poet uses the word 'Death' to highlight the end of the summer.

This element is explained in the final couplet when the speaking's voice stresses that the sonnet is immortal and could give life to him as long as men can breathe or eyes can see.