Shakespeares Sonnet 18 - Essay Example

Shakespeare’s Sonnet: 18 The world renowned playwright and poet, William Shakespeare (1564-1616) has to credit 38 plays and 154 sonnets along with two long narrative poems. This Shakespearean sonnet no. 18 gives permanence to the beauty of his friend through verse. Shakespeare through the first line, “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?” puts forward a question and in the remaining lines tries to compare the summer’s day with his friend. The beloved one is more lovely and temperate than the summer day.

A summer day can be filled with rough winds and can make uneasiness to the nature. It can take both the extremes: sometimes too hot and sometimes too dim. Further the poet says, whatever is beautiful, will sometimes lose beauty either by misfortune or by the course of the nature. Even though all these are there in beauty, the poet tells that the beauty of his friend will never fade. His friend’s beauty will never lose and not even death can claim it. The beauty of the friend will live forever in the eternal verse of the poet.

In final couplet the poet says that as long as people as people in this earth live, and so long as the poetry lives along with the people, this poem will immortalise his friend. This Petrarchan sonnet follows the rhyming pattern; ‘ab ab cd cd ef ef’ ending with the rhyming couplet ‘gg,’ is believed to be praising Shakespeare’s friend, W.H. or Henry Wriothesely, the Earl of Southampton. Through the sonnet Shakespeare declares the permanence of art above mortality. According to him the beauty of his friend will live forever as it has been inscribed in verse.

The poet at first tried to compare his friend with a summer’s day and then he moved to place the position of his friend above the summer’s day. Carl Senna considers this poem as “memorable for the skilful and varied presentation of subject matter, in which the poet’s feelings reach a level of rapture unseen in the previous sonnets” (Senna 27). Through analysing the sonnet the mastery of the Shakespeare in glorifying an earthly factor to eternal level can be seen with excellent lyrical balance throughout it.

To sum up, this sonnet marks as a permanent one against all as stated by the poet in it. Work Cited Senna, Carl. Shakespeare’s Sonnets Notes. John Wiley and Sons, 2000. Print.