William Shakespeare's "Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer's Day": Analysis

Written by Jordan Dickie - BestWord poetical works and analysis.

     William Shakespeare’s eighteenth sonnet, “Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer’s Day?”, is perhaps Shakespeare’s most famous sonnet of his whole complete works of one hundred and fifty-four.  Shakespeare’s “Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer’s Day” is an intriguing sonnet that, though still comparing the beloved subject of the sonnet to a “Summer’s Day”, still finds its greatest virtue in the final two lines of the sonnet; the gift of immortality through Shakespeare’s written word.  By concluding “Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer’s Day” with the fateful couplet that he so chose, it may be argued that, though, yes, Shakespeare was comparing his subject to a “Summer’s Day”, “Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer’s Day” is a proverbial work on literary immortality.

 SONNET XVIII
“SHALL I COMPARE THEE TO A SUMMER’S DAY?”

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 dimmed;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance, or nature's changing course untrimmed;
But thy eternal summer shall not fade,
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st;
Nor shall death brag thou wand'rest 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.

                                  (William Shakespeare, 1609)

     The renowned Shakespearean line, “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day? (1), is a line that few men in their youth have not memorized for recitation or young women can remember reading in a letter from a ardent suitor.  It evokes images of 17th century lovers quoting poetry to one another in much the same way that Romeo serenaded Juliet from beneath her balcony.  In many ways Shakespeare’s “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?” is the single line that could sum several centuries of amorist literature, and is the archetypal apex of love poetry.

     William Shakespeare’s “Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer’s Day?” opens with a four line stanza, or quatrain, with the first two lines, “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day? / Thou art more lovely and more temperate:” (1-2), introducing the general premise of the sonnet; that his subject is, in many ways, far better than a summer’s day.  Shakespeare’s subject is, as he describes, “more lovely and more temperate” (2); his subject being more beautiful and significantly more balanced or emotionally stable than the harsh extremes of a temperamental English summer. 

     William Shakespeare’s “Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer’s Day?” then proceeds, for the following six lines, to bring to light the many failings and short fallings that a summer’s day can have.  Shakespeare describes in the third line, “Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,” (3),  how early summer’s weather can be considered a bit tempestuous; it’s winds ruining any excursions with its stormy torrents.  Shakespeare’s fourth line, “And summer’s lease hath all too short a date:” (4), describes how though summer may be beautiful it still is only temporary and, like many beautiful things, must draw to a close and make way for their notorious winters of aging and eventual death.  Shakespeare’s fifth and sixth lines describe how, during a particularly hot summer, the sun, “the eye of heaven” (5), shines far too intensely and in cloudy weather the days are overcast and gray; “his gold complexion dimmed;” (6).

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