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The Full Text of “Sonnet 18: Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?”
1Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?
2Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
3Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
4And summer’s lease hath all too short a date;
5Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
6And often is his gold complexion dimm'd;
7And every fair from fair sometime declines,
8By chance or nature’s changing course untrimm'd;
9But thy eternal summer shall not fade,
10Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st;
11Nor shall death brag thou wander’st in his shade,
12When in eternal lines to time thou grow’st:
13 So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
14 So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.
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“Sonnet 18: Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?” Introduction
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“Sonnet 18: Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?” Summary
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“Sonnet 18: Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?” Themes
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Art and Immortality
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Line-by-Line Explanation & Analysis of “Sonnet 18: Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?”
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Lines 1-4
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; -
Lines 5-6
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimm'd; -
Lines 7-8
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance or nature’s changing course untrimm'd; -
Lines 9-12
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: -
Lines 13-14
So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.
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“Sonnet 18: Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?” Symbols
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Seasons
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The Sun
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“Sonnet 18: Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?” Poetic Devices & Figurative Language
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Alliteration
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Anaphora
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Aporia
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End-Stopped Line
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Euphony
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Diacope
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Personification
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Juxtaposition
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“Sonnet 18: Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?” Vocabulary
Select any word below to get its definition in the context of the poem. The words are listed in the order in which they appear in the poem.
- Temperate
- Lease
- Complexion
- Fair
- Untrimmed
- Possession
- Ow'st
Temperate-
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Form, Meter, & Rhyme Scheme of “Sonnet 18: Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?”
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Form
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Meter
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Rhyme Scheme
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“Sonnet 18: Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?” Speaker
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“Sonnet 18: Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?” Setting
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Literary and Historical Context of “Sonnet 18: Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?”
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More “Sonnet 18: Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?” Resources
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External Resources
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"Sonnet 18" Read Aloud — Listen to actor David Tenant read "Sonnet 18" aloud.
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Image of "Sonnet 18" in its 1609 Printing — An image of Shakespeare's "Sonnet 18" as it appeared in its first printing.
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Close Reading of "Sonnet 18" — Richard Price close reads "Sonnet 18" for the British Library.
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David Gilmour Sings "Sonnet 18" — David Gilmour from Pink Floyd performs a musical interpretation of the poem.
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"Sonnet 18" Meter — Test your understanding of Shakespeare's meter with this interactive tool from the University of Virginia.
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