William Shakespeare .......... Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer's Day ( sonnet xviii )

Appreciating Poetry  - Second semester of First year B.A. Degree English Core Course

1.      

The narrator in the Sonnet xviii of William Shakespeare compares his beloved to the summer season in Nature. Many defects of summer season are described here. Sometimes rough winds blow heavily and shake the beautiful flowers and buds and spoil them. Sometimes summer days are very hot and unbearable for plants and human beings and animals. Finally, the life span of summer is very short. But in comparison with the summer season, the beloved of the narrator is more handsome and lovelier.

The narrator makes three arguments. He compares his beloved to the beauty of Nature. But time is a villiain and destroys every beautiful and bright thing in Nature. Thirdly his poetry will live longer than his beloved. The life span of summer season is very short and the beloved is like the summer season. So the narrator plans to increase the life span of his beloved. He immortalizes the glory of the beloved through the lines of his poetry. There is an inner meaning to the term ‘line’. It is the meaning of grafting of the branches of two different trees. The beloved is the weaker branch. But when it is grafted with the  branch of his poetry, it becomes stronger than ever before.

 Now the narrator speaks about the cruelties of Time who is always portrayed by Shakespeare as ‘Villain’. Time destroys the beauty of nature and human beings. Young becomes old and create full of wrinkles and dirty looking. Every beautiful flower lost its colour and beauty by the cruelties of Time. Finally time kills all beautiful young men and women. But the narrator wants to prolong the life span of his young handsome man. The narrator says that his poetry will be  read and enjoyed by people all over the world and thereby the unknown handsome young man also be made immortal through his poetry.

 Questions and answers

1.       What is the beloved compared to by the narrator in Shakespeare’s poem?  - In Shakespeare’s Sonnet xviii, the narrator compares the beloved to a summer’s day because in England summer’s days is more beautiful than any other days in winter, autumn or spring. Summer days are the most beautiful days of the year in the cold country. It is during summer days, that flower plants blossom and everywhere green carpeted meadows and hills are seen intoxicating our eyes and minds.

2.       Comment on the imagery in the poem. The narrator in the Sonnet xviii of William Shakespeare titled “Shall I compare thee to a Summer’s Day?”  makes lots of comparisons. The unknown handsome young man who is the beloved of the narrator is more beautiful than a summer’s day which is full of bright sunlight with green carpeted meadows, hills and valleys and bubbling brooks,  and thousands of fragrant flowers and buds. Time is another imagery and the Villain destroys every  beauty of  Nature. But the narrator protects his beloved from the  cruelties of Time by immortalizing him through his poetry which is widely read and be enjoyed by people all over the world. The narrator is confident that as long as his poetry is enjoyed by human beings, his beloved will live for ever.          Kjt/- 10-03-2020