Here is a link to the poem Sonnet 18 by Shakespeare.

William Shakespeare is probably the best known and studied poet and playwright in the English language. You might have come across him before but it’s useful to know why he is so popular, even though he was born over 450 years ago!

Even today, he is still considered one of the best writers in English. His works are centred around themes such as love, death, power, ambition and many more which still teach us about our everyday lives. He wrote 57 plays, 154 sonnets and invented about 1700 English words that we still use today. Words such as ‘green-eyed’ to describe jealousy (the green-eyed monster) and ‘lacklustre’ for something or someone who is dull and uninspiring are two of his many creations.

Sonnet 18 is one of Shakespeare’s most famous poems in which he expresses his undying love for his lover or close friend, often thought to be a young man, but we are not sure. In this poem or, more specifically, a sonnet, Shakespeare wants his lover to know that he will continue to admire his beauty no matter what changes take place over time. His love and admiration of his lover’s beauty will go on forever, even as he gets old, and this will continue even into death and beyond (more on this later). This shows a profound depth of love that continues to resonate with modern audiences.

The sonnet form of this poem is useful when examining this poem in-depth. Shakespeare’s sonnets consist, as all sonnets do, of 14 lines. Shakespeare divides this poem into 4 line segments (quatrains) for the first 12 lines and ends with an impactful rhyming couplet in the final 2 lines.

In the first 4 lines (quatrain) Shakespeare starts with a rhetorical question which is bound to get his audience’s attention. He wonders if he can compare his lover’s beauty to the beauty of a summer’s day. We all know how stunning a perfect summer’s day can be, but Shakespeare decides that his lover is better than that. He addresses his lover directly, ‘Thou’ – an archaic form of ‘you’ – and says that he (or she) is more ‘lovely’ and ‘temperate’. Temperate means moderate, i.e.: less extreme – summer can be very hot but his lover is gentler and more moderate than that. He goes on to look at what else can ruin a pleasant summer’s day, ‘rough winds do shake the darling buds of May’ and summer, in any case, is too short, ‘all too short a date’. May is spring in the England where Shakespeare lived. This shows how his lover is more beautiful than the most gorgeous summer’s day.

In the next quatrain (starting with the line ‘Sometimes too hot’), Shakespeare continues to explore this idea of summer not being perfect. Summer can be too hot or too cloudy. He uses personification to compare the sun to a person with a golden appearance. This appearance will dim (when covered by clouds) or fade (when seasons change) over time. Shakespeare comments that everything ‘fair’ – beautiful – will fade either by chance or because nature always changes. This is as true of people as they age as it is to the changing of seasons.

In the third quatrain (starting with ‘But thy eternal beauty’), Shakespeare turns things on their head. He starts with ‘But’ to show that his lover is better than a seasonal summer day. He declares that his lover’s beauty ‘summer’ will never ‘fade’. The beauty that he (or she) possesses – ‘that fair thou ow’st’ – will go on even after death. Death is personified as someone who would boast or ‘brag’ about keeping Shakespeare’s lover ‘wandering in his shade’. ‘Shade’ here is a metaphor for death. So, even though he (or she) is physically dead, his (or her) beauty will continue into eternity – ‘thy eternal summer shall not fade’. And this is thanks to the ‘eternal lines’ of the poem he is writing. Shakespeare’s repetition of ‘eternal’ in this quatrain emphasises how the beauty of his lover will continue even after death.

And so we come to the final rhyming couplet which confidently assures his lover ‘thee’ that as long as people are alive and ‘can breathe or eyes can see’, and as long as they can still read his sonnet then his lover’s beauty will continue to live, ‘gives life to thee’. So although his (or her) physical beauty will disappear, this poem itself will keep the beauty alive through the words describing it.

And hundreds of years later, Shakespeare is proved right as you are reading this poem now! His description of his lover’s beauty has lasted… although the irony is that it is Shakespeare we celebrate for this, and we don’t even know whose beauty he was talking about.

Nevertheless, this powerful ending has resonated with lovers across the world and across the centuries, and this is one of Shakespeare’s most famous sonnets.