CC - IV: Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer's Day: William Shakespeare- Summary Critical Analysis|| Pdf book

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 ow’st;

Nor shall death brag thou wander’st 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

Summary

 

Should I compare you to a summer's day?

You are lovelier and more mild.

In May rough winds shake the delicate flower buds,

And the duration of summer is always too short.

Sometimes the Sun, the eye of heaven, is too hot,

And his golden face is often dimmed;

And beauty falls away from beautiful people,

Stripped by chance or nature's changing course.

But your eternal summer will not fade,

Nor will you lose possession of the beauty you own,

Nor will death be able to boast that you wander in his shade,

When you live in eternal lines, set apart from time.

As long as men breathe or have eyes to see,

As long as this sonnet lives, it will give life to you.

               (First 12line) The poem opens with the speaker putting forward a simple question: can he compare his lover to a summer’s day? Historically, the theme of summertime has always been used to evoke a certain amount of beauty, particularly in poetry. Summer has always been seen as the respite from the long, bitter winter, a growing period where the earth flourishes itself with flowers and with animals once more. Thus, to compare his lover to a summer’s day, the speaker considers their beloved to be tantamount to a rebirth, and even better than summer itself.

                  As summer is occasionally short, too hot, and rough, summer is, in fact, not the height of beauty for this particular speaker. Instead, he attributes that quality to his beloved, whose beauty will never fade, even when ‘death brag thou waander’stin his shade‘, as he will immortalize his lover’s beauty in his verse.

                (last 2 line)                The immortality of love and beauty through poetry provides the speaker with his beloved’s eternal summer. Though they might die and be lost to time, the poem will survive, will be spoken of, will live on when they do not. Thus, through the words, his beloved’s beauty will also live on.

                  In terms of imagery, there is not much that one can say about it. William Shakespeare’s sonnets thrive on a simplicity of imagery, at a polar opposite to his plays, whose imagery can sometimes be packed with meaning. Here, in this particular sonnet, the feeling of summer is evoked through references to the ‘darling buds‘ of May, and through the description of the sun as golden-complexioned. It is almost ironic that we are not given a description of the lover in particular. In fact, scholars have argued that, as a love poem, the vagueness of the beloved’s description leads them to believe that it is not a love poem written to a person, but a love poem about itself; a love poem about love poetry, which shall live on with the excuse of being a love poem. The final two lines seem to corroborate this view, as it moves away from the description of the lover to point out the longevity of his own poem. As long as men can read and breathe, his poem shall live on, and his lover, too, will live on, because he is the subject of this poem.

Critical Analysis

     The poet William Shakespeare thinks that his love is incomparable. He can’t compare her to the summer’s days because; she is lovelier and milder than it. In summer the stormy winds weaken the charming rosebuds and the prospect of renewed health or happiness lasts for a very short time. The sun is occasionally very hot and its golden rays are often dim.

                       The beauty of every beautiful thing decreases and is spoiled accidentally or naturally. But the eternal summer or the charm of the poet’s love will never be proud of taking the poet’s friend to its dark kingdom. In fact, death will never enjoy its victory over his friend because the poet’s verse will remain eternal all through the time. His friend may die physically, but her beauty will remain in the poem. As long as the human race remains alive and as long as men can read, this sonnet will live as it is eternal, and thus the poet’s friend will be immortal.

                    This sonnet claims that the Dark Lady is more beautiful than the summer’s day and is also as immortal as Shakespeare’s sonnet. Thoughts of a literary immortality through the poet's verse inspire this sonnet. Her eternal summer would outlast all summer’s lease in the future. The beauty of the summer’s day with the darling buds of May is not lovelier than her. Eternal lines of verse would make an eternal summer of her beauty denying Death and Time and their power of destruction.

                           Shakespeare takes heart, expects immortality for his verse, and so immortality for his friend as surviving in it. He will fearlessly express ‘a poet’s rage’. Immortalizing beauty through verse was a commonplace among the Elizabethan sonnet writers. This sonnet is magnificent throughout-from the perfect beauty of the opening quatrain to the sweet and the rush of the triumphant final couplet. The rhythms are varied with the subtlest skill and the majestic line-“But thy eternal summer shall not fade” reverberates like a stroke on a gong.

                      This sonnet has three quatrains and a couplet. It follows the rhyme scheme abba cdcd efefef and gg. The ideas are developed in the three quatrains and the conclusion is embedded in the couplet. The conclusion is that as long as the human race remains alive and as long as men can read, this sonnet will live, and thus immortalize the woman the poet loves. Shakespeare’s conclusion holds true because art can really immortalize people. Time and death may destroy the persona and her beauty physically, but they can’t destroy her completely. Whenever people read this verse, they certainly remember the poet’s beloved and she is brought to life in the mind of the readers. Time and death can’t wipe out her existence for ever. The rose metaphor is deftly humanized in the phrase ‘darling bud of May’ in this sonnet.

If any problem contact us and comment below