Slides compiled and prepared by Nishat H This is for review of lessons discussed in class.

1. Sonnet 18
William Shakespeare
Prepared by Nishat H

2. William Shakespeare
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3. William Shakespeare 1564-1616
Born in Stratford
The 3rd of 8 kids
Married at age 18
(Anne Hathaway,
his wife, was 26)
Worked as an actor
Published 37 plays:
*Comedies
*Tragedies
*Histories
*156 Sonnets (poems)
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4.  a lyric poem
 consisting of fourteen lines
 written in iambic pentameter
 with a definite rhyme scheme
 and a definite thought structure
A sonnet is….
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5. What is a sonnet?
• A sonnet is a fourteen-line
poem in iambic pentameter
often about LOVE.
• It usually argues a point or
solves a problem.
Ex: You must love me because…
Iambic what?
Oh dear, this is
going to be a
weird lesson!
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6. Iambic
Pentameter
• Iambic Pentameter is
the rhythm and
metre in which poets
and playwrights
wrote in Elizabethan
England. It is a metre
that Shakespeare
uses.
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8. Pentameter?
• An ‘iamb’ is ‘dee Dum’ – it is the heart
beat.
• Penta is from the Greek for five.
• Meter is really the pattern
• So, there are five iambs per line!
• (Iambic penta meter )
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9. Heartbeat.
Quite simply, it sounds like this:
dee DUM, dee DUM, dee DUM,
dee DUM, dee DUM. It consists
of a line of five iambic feet, ten
syllables with five unstressed
and five stressed syllables. It is
the first and last sound we ever
hear, it is the rhythm of the
human heart beat.
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11. Rhyming patterns
• The Shakespearean sonnet has three quatrains followed by a couplet, the
scheme being: abab cdcd efef gg.
• Quatrains are four line stanzas of any kind.
• Couplets are two line stanzas of any kind.
• I have divided the following sonnet into the three quatrains.
Can you label the quatrains?
(The couplet has been labelled for you.)
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12. THEME OF LOVE and TIME in
his sonnets:
• LOVE outlasts TIME
• POETRY outlasts both LOVE & TIME
• Other themes: beauty, death, friendship, power
of the beloved and suffering of the lover.
• In his sonnets Shakespeare wishes to preserve
the ETERNAL PART of the young’s beloved’s
beauty against the effects of time. There is a
repeated idea of the poetry’s capacity to
IMMORTALIZE.
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13. Each slide will represent one line of the sonnet;
the text will appear on the slide; a background
image will scaffold understanding of the text.
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28. 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.
Sonnet 18
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29. Translation
• Shall I compare you to a summer's day?
• You are more lovely and more constant
• Rough winds shake the pretty flower buds in May,
• but summer will end too soon
• At times the sun is too hot,
• Or often goes behind the clouds;
• And everything beautiful sometime will lose its
beauty
• By chance or by nature's planned out course.
• But your youthful beauty shall not fade,
• Nor will you lose the beauty that you possess;
• Nor will death claim you for his own,
• Because in my eternal verse you will live forever.
• So long as there are people on this earth,
• So long will this poem live on, making you
immortal.
Questions for Discussion
• What reasons does the speaker
give for not comparing his lover to
a summer’s day? (Quatrains 1&2)
• What is special about the lover’s
beauty? (Quatrain 3)
• In the end, what will keep the
lover alive and beautiful?
(Couplet)
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30. The BIG BUT!
• The BIG BUT typically comes after the first 8 lines and
within the last 6 lines.
• It signifies the turn, volta, change in thought, change
in direction, or shift in poem and emotion.
• But, yet, wait for a moment, even so.
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31. What does it mean?
• So long as men can breathe or eyes can see, (g)
So long lives this and this gives life to thee. (g)
• As long as there are people still alive to read poems
this sonnet will live, and you will live in it.
• The beauty will live on through the poem for as long as it
can be read.
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32. 1st quatrain
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
• Should I compare you to a summer’s day? The youth’s
beauty is more gentle and restrained than the beauty of a
summer day. Strong winds shake the beautiful bud of the
early summer. Summer has a deadline which is too short
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33. 2nd quatrain
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines
And often is his gold complexion dimmed
And every fair from fair sometime decline
By chance, or nature’s changing course untrimmed
• And his golden face is often obscured. All beautiful things
occasionally become inferior in comparison with their
essential previous state of beauty, by chance or by the
changing course of the nature without ornaments .
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34. 3rd quatrain
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
• But your eternal summer shall not die. Nor shall it lose its
hold on that beauty which you so richly possess. And you
will never die as you will live on my enduring poetry.
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35. Final couplet
So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.
• As long as people live and breathe, as long as eyes can see
it -that is how long these verses will live, celebrating you ,
and continually renewing you life.
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36. Finally…..
• In William Shakespeare’s Sonnet 18, one gets the feeling
he is describing a love that goes beyond the temporal
realm of time and seasons.
• LINES ONE AND TWO start with a question which the
rest of the sonnet answers.
• LINES THREE THROUGH EIGHT point out a number of
negative characteristics of summer.
• LINES NINE THROUGH FOURTEEN offer a view of the
lover's many contrasts with nature.
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37. Huzzah!
Thou hast
done it!
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38. Questions & Answers
1. Which aspects of a summer day are used in this comparison
with the beloved? Are any of them favorable?
Pretty, warm, sunny, lovely which are all favorable. But also
too hot, and sometimes cloudy.
2. According to the speaker, what will keep his beloveds “eternal
summer” from fading?
His poems will keep her beauty from fading.
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39. 3. Some readers feel that Shakespeare, in this sonnet, was paying
greater tribute to his poetry than to his love. What do you
think?
His main focus is on her beauty even though he does refer to
his poetry as a source of her undying beauty.
4. The theme of Sonnet 18 is not a summer’s day, nor even the
comparison of the beloved to a summer’s day. Think about
the couplets connection to the rest of the sonnet. Explain the
theme.
The ongoing comparison between summer and his love
describes how summer changes but her beauty is never going
to change.
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40. Theme

41. Theme
The theme of our poem
is eternal love.
Shakespeare compares
his lover to summer, the
most beautiful season of
the year. However,
summer’s beauty cannot
exist all year long, but
his love for her and her
beauty will always exist.
• Line 9 “But thy eternal
summer shall not
fade”
• Line 13-14 “So long as
men can breathe or
eyes can see, So long
lives this and this gives
life to thee.”
• Line 12 “When in
eternal lines to time
thou growest.”
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Love & Beauty
 Literature and Writing
 Time
Immortality
 Transience/ Man and the Natural World

44. Poetic Devices

45. Extended Metaphor
The entire poem is an extended metaphor comparing a
summer’s day to Shakespeare’s lover’s eternal beauty.
Quatrain 1:
Compared to a summer’s day, she is better than a summer’s day because she is
more lovely and temperate. In lines 3 and 4 Shakespeare compares how summer
eventually ends but his love for her and her beauty never will.
Quatrain 2:
Shakespeare compares the ever-changing seasons with his lover’s unchanging
beauty.
Quatrain 3:
Shakespeare says his lover’s beauty is will never fade, his lover for her is eternal.
Couplet:
He sums up the poem, stating his love will live forever, as long as this poem exists.
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46. Other Poetic Techniques
Within the poem, Shakespeare also used the following techniques:
Personification: the attribution of human qualities to objects
Ex: “Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May” (Line 3)
Ex: too hot the eye of heaven shines, (Line 5)
And often his gold complexion dimm’d; (Line 6)
He is giving heaven a human trait, saying heaven has an eye.
(metaphor for the sun)
Ex: Nor shall death brag thou wander’st in his shade, (Line 11)
He gave death a human trait, because death can not brag.
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47. • HYPERBOLE: the use of exaggeration as a rethorical
device.
• METAPHOR: the use of a word or phrase to refer to
something that isn’t, creating a direct similarity between
the word or phrase used and the thing described. Ex: “The
eye of heaven” is used to referring to the SUN.
• REPETITION (Anaphora): the use of words repeatedly to
reinforce an image, idea or to convey a message Ex: Note
the repetition of certain words through the sonnet:
summer, fair, so long, thou.
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48. Symbolism
In the poem, a summer’s day is a symbol for the poet’s love
for his lover and her eternal beauty. Most people think
summer is the most beautiful season in the year since it is
always so sunny and bright. This is the same perspective as
Shakespeare’s, only better. During summer, winds blow the
buds off of the flowers, destroying their beauty.
However, her beauty is eternal, nothing in the world can
damage her beauty. Seasons cycle during the year, summer
will not stay forever. But no matter what happens, her beauty
will always exist as she lives on in Shakespeare’s heart and
immortalized through his poetry.
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49. Imagery
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May (line 3)
This line provides a good image (sight) of petite buds swaying in wild wind.
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines (line 5)
This line provides a good image (sight) of hot summer sun, shinning in the
glorious sky.
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50. What if we were in the same boat?
1) If you were Shakespeare and you wanted to write a love poem,
what would you compare your lover to? Why?
2) Why did Shakespeare use summer to compare his love in the
poem? How is this choice effective?
3) Do you believe love is eternal? Why?
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51. Watch the video on youtube to have a visual
presentation of the poem
^_^
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Onn6tJ9ICBc
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1. Which aspects of a summer day are used in this comparison with the
beloved? Are any of them favorable?
2. According to the speaker, what will keep his beloveds “eternal summer”
from fading?
3. Some readers feel that Shakespeare, in this sonnet, was paying greater
tribute to his poetry than to his love. What do you think?
4. The theme of Sonnet 18 is not a summer’s day, nor even the comparison
of the beloved to a summer’s day. Think about the couplets connection
to the rest of the sonnet. Explain the theme.

53. The End
We Hope You Enjoyed It!
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