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| Shall I Compare Thee To a Summer's Day by William Shakespeare Summary and Exercises |
Summary
The poet William Shakespeare thinks that his love is incomparable. He can’t compare her to the summer’s days because; she is lovelier and milder than it. In summer the stormy winds weaken the charming rosebuds and the prospect of renewed health or happiness lasts for a very short time. The sun is occasionally very hot and its golden rays are often dim.
The beauty of every beautiful thing decreases and is spoiled accidentally or naturally. But the eternal summer or the charm of the poet’s love will never be proud of taking the poet’sfriend to its dark kingdom. In fact, death will never enjoy its victory over his friend because the poet’s verse will remain eternal all through the time. His friend may die physically, but her beauty will remain in the poem. As long as the human race remains alive and as long as men can read, this sonnet will live as it is eternal, and thus the poet’s friend will be immortal.
This sonnet claims that the Dark Lady is more beautiful than the summer’s day and is also as immortal as Shakespeare’s sonnet. Thoughts of a literary immortality through the poet's verse inspire this sonnet. Her eternal summer would outlast all summer’s lease in the future. The beauty of the summer’s day with the darling buds of May is not lovelier than her. Eternal lines of verse would make an eternal summer of her beauty denying Death and Time and their power of destruction.
Shakespeare takes heart, expects immortality for his verse, and so immortality for his friend as surviving in it. He will fearlessly express ‘a poet’s rage’. Immortalizing beauty through verse was a commonplace among the Elizabethan sonnet writers. This sonnet is magnificent throughout-from the perfect beauty of the opening quatrain to the sweet and the rush of the triumphant final couplet. The rhythms are varied with the subtlest skill and the majestic line-“But thy eternal summer shall not fade” reverberates like a stroke on a gong.
This sonnet has three quatrains and a couplet. It follows the rhyme scheme abba cdcd efefef and gg. The ideas are developed in the three quatrains and the conclusion is embedded in the couplet. The conclusion is that as long as the human race remains alive and as long as men can read, this sonnet will live, and thus immortalize the woman the poet loves. Shakespeare’s conclusion holds true because art can really immortalize people. Time and death may destroy the persona and her beauty physically, but they can’t destroy her completely. Whenever people read this verse, they certainly remember the poet’s beloved and she is brought to life in the mind of the readers. Time and death can’t wipe out her existence for ever. The rose metaphor is deftly humanized in the phrase ‘darling bud of May’ in this sonnet.
Exercises
1. Poets compare different things and persons. In this poem Shakespeare wishes to compare his beloved with summer's day? Why does he want to compare her with a season? Give your reasons.
Shakespeare compares his beloved with summer's day. He does so because in England it is cold almost throughout the whole year. It is only the summer when people in England can enjoy the sunlight. It is the most beautiful weather for English people. So the poet compares his beloved to this beautiful weather and says she is more beautiful than summer.
2. Tone in the poems refers to the mood of expression of the poem like happy, celebrating, sad, melancholic etc. Is the tone of the poem happy or sad or something else? How? Describe.
The tone of the poet is happy in the poem. The poet happily praises his beloved that how much beautiful she is for him. He says till the end of the world she will be remembered in this poem. This too he says happily.
Thus, we can think that the tone is happy in the poem.
3. Central Idea means what the writer wants to say or main idea of the poem. What is the central idea of the present poem?
Nature is beautiful, but is subject to change. On the other hand, the beauty of the poet's beloved is unchanging. However, that beauty is liable to disappear with the death of his beloved. That is why the poet composes a poem whose subject is that very beauty in order to immortalize it. He is sure that future generations will read this poem and appreciate the beauty of which it speaks.
4. What is a Sonnet? Write its meaning with examples.
Sonnet is a 14 line poem with a certain rhyming pattern and written usually iambic pentameter. It is a type of song basically about love and passion. The sonnets vary from Petrarch to Spenser and Shakespeare in rhyming pattern, theme, stanza structure. Sonnet number 18 (Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer's Day?) by
William Shakespeare is a good example of the Sonnet.
Also Read: Letter of Christopher Columbus: On His First Voyage to America, 1492 | Summary and Question Answers
5. Illustrate and explain the rhyming pattern of the present Sonnet?
Sonnet 18 is an Elizabethan Sonnet, meaning it contains 14 lines, including three quatrains and a Couplet, and is written in iambic pentameter. The poem follows the rhyme scheme (rhyming pattern) abab cdcd efef gg .
6. You may know much about summer season. How does the poet describe nature in the Sonnet? Illustrate.
Shakespeare Primarily uses imagery of nature throughout the poem to proclaim his feelings about the beauty of his beloved. She describes summer in a way that contrasts the kind of summer we usually visualize. The line "Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May" shows that the boy eats is the summer climate to as a blow to the spring flowers. He wants to show just how much better his beloved beauty is compared to that of
summer.
7. Explain the following lines with reference to the text:
So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
So long lives this and this gives life to thee.
The last two lines i.e. couplets, are one of the most powerful lines in the poem. Through these lines, the poet says that until the world comes to an end, until the men can breathe and their eyes can see, they will keep on reading his poetry. And in the poetry, where the poet has written about his beloved, will also be remembered.
