Sonnet XVIII (18) by William Shakespeare[Critical Analsis & Line-to-line Explanation)

Sonnet 18

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 dimm’d;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance or nature’s changing course untrimm’d;
But thy eternal summer shall not fade
Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest;
Nor shall Death brag thou wander’st in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou growest:
   So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
   So long lives this, and this gives life to thee. 

This sonnet is considered to be the most famous of all the sonnets written by William Shakespeare. The poet appreciates someone, who is not clearly mentioned in the poem.

Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate: 

The sonnet opens abruptly with a rhetorical question ‘Shall I 

compare thee to a summer’s day?’ 

The next line ‘Thou art more lovely and temperate’ seems to be directly addressed to the person who is being appreciated in such a unique manner.

The poet is not taking any permission from the person addressed to, but it may be that the poet poses this question to himself just to give conversational tone to the opening of the sonnet. He thinks to compare his beloved (male or female) to a ‘summer’s day. In England, summer season comes for a very short time. One can notice beautiful flowers blooming around. So the poet desires to compare his beloved to a beautiful summer day. But then, suddenly, the poet changes his mind and declares ‘Thou art more lovely and more temperate: ‘

It means that the beautiful summer day has no comparison with his beloved because he/she is more lovely and temperate than a summer day. The use of the word temperate signifies ‘balanced’ or constant in nature.

In the next lines, the poet proceeds to prove as to how the summer’s day is unpredictable and not constant as the beauty of his beloved is.

Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
First, rough or strong winds start blowing all of a sudden and they shake off the lovely buds from the plants. Thus the beauty and loveliness of the summer day is ruined by the fast blowing winds.

And summer’s lease hath all too short a date:

Second, the summer season is short-lived. As we know, summer season provides respite from the chilly weather conditions prevailing there in the whole region. It is like spring season which we enjoy in our country. Thus the poet adds second contrasting feature of the summer day.

Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimm’d;
And every fair from fair sometime declines, 

Third, sometimes it so happens that the sun shines too much brightly in the sky. The poet calls the sun ‘the eye of heaven’. Here, we find personification of the sky and the sun has been used as a metaphor to intensify the effect of the heat on the earth and all the creatures on it. In simple words, we may say that though the summer days are very beautiful in England but their beauty and loveliness is sometimes marred by the heat of the sun. On the other hand, the loveliness of his beloved doesn’t have such limitation.

And often is his gold complexion dimm’d;

In the above line, the poet keeps on describing the summer day’s limitations. He says that very often the golden complexion of the summer day is dimmed when the clouds overcast the sky and the sun is hidden behind them. We must note here that the poet has also personified the summer day having loveliness and beauty on his face. That’s why, he uses the pronoun ‘his’ in the above line. If we assume that the poet means to say the sun’s golden complexion, it does not establish connection to the main thread of the meaning. The reason is that the poet has called the sun ‘the eye of heaven’. In spring season, the sun is usually mild and its rays make the face of the earth with all its beauty golden. But the poet says that the summer’s day, which is often golden due to the mild rays of the sun, is sometimes dimmed when there are clouds in the sky. We may also suppose that the sky is dimmed when the clouds hide the sun behind them. Thus the poet proves his point that the loveliness of a summer’s day is transitory.

And every fair from fair sometime declines,

After describing the dimming effect on the summer’s day, the poet proceeds to lay emphasis on the transitory nature of physical beauty on the earth. Beauty of every object on the earth fades with the passage of time.

By chance or nature’s changing course untrimm’d; 

The reason behind this ruinous nature of Time is by chance or it may be the unaltered plan of Nature.

But thy eternal summer shall not fade
Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest;
Nor shall Death brag thou wander’st in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou growest:
After creating a bitter contrast by describing the limitations of the summer’s day, the poet comes to the point. Now he says what he really wanted to say. He says that his beloved loveliness shall never fade. He calls it eternal. His friend will also never lose the qualities that he/she possesses. The poet further points out that Death shall also have no effect on his beloved, who will remain eternal in his verses.

 So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
 So long lives this, and this gives life to thee. 

He further clarifies the thought of making his beloved above the ravaging effect of Time and Death. He says that his verses and his beloved shall remain in the hearts of human beings till they live on the earth. The people shall keep on reading and enjoying his verses and, thus, his beloved shall also be living in his lines.