DIRECTIONS: Summer is a warm, delightful time of year often associated

with rest and recreation. Shakespeare uses figurative language to compare

his love to a summers day in Sonnet 18. Use the COMMENT button to
interpret his poem line-by-line and annotate the poem with at least 5
comments. Right-click on a word and click Define to read a definition to
help you. Then, answer the questions that follow on page 2.

Shall I compare thee to a summers day?

(Sonnet 18)
William Shakespeare, 1564 - 1616

Shall I compare thee to a summers day?

Thou art more lovely and more temperate.

Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,

And summers lease hath all too short a date.

Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,

And often is his gold complexion dimmed;

And every fair from fair sometime declines,

By chance, or natures changing course, untrimmed;

But thy eternal summer shall not fade,

10

Nor lose possession of that fair thou owst,

11

Nor shall death brag thou wandrest in his shade,

12

When in eternal lines to Time thou growst.

13

So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,

14

So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

Answer these questions when done with your interpretative

comments:
How does Shakespeare
make the woman he loves
sound more appealing?

He makes her sound appealing by comparing her to a

summers day; he describes her in multiple ways that make
her sound better than a summers day.

What does the metaphor

mean in line 9?

I think Shakespeare was trying to imply that the woman in this

poem would never loose her inner beauty because of the
poem.

Shakespeare portrays the

woman he loves as
ATTRACTIVE. Provide ONE
example from the poem
that gives evidence to
support this idea. Cite
specific evidence and
explain.

But thy eternal summer shall not fade, (9) Shakespeare

wrote in his poem, Sonnet 18. This is one citation that shows
how Shakespeare portrays the woman he loves as attractive in
the poem. Another quote that shows this is, Thou art more
lovely and more temperate (2). This shows her beauty
because he describes her as more beautiful than a summers
day.

Which statement explains

how Shakespeare uses
figurative language in lines
5 & 6? Highlight one
answer.

a. Summer is always the best time of year.

b. The sun is personified to show that summer can have really
hot
days and also sometimes cloudy days.
c. The sun is meant to seem like it is making sounds and
annoying
people.
d. He is comparing his love to a cloudy day.

Shakespeare uses
personification to portray
the SEASONS as
threatening. Provide ONE
example from the poem
that gives evidence to
support this idea. Cite
specific evidence and
explain.

By chance, or natures changing course, untrimmed... The

reason this citation shows that Shakespeare portrays the
seasons as threatening is that he makes it sound like nature
planned out the course of beautiful things losing their beauty
(what it said in the previous line).

Which theme does summer

represent in the poem?
Highlight one answer.

a. Its better to be beautiful than smart.

b. Sometimes change is hard to see.
c. Beauty can last forever in a poem.

d. Pain lessens as time goes on.

How does the repetition of
words and concepts in the
last two lines contribute to
the meaning of the poem?
Do you notice any other
repetition? Why do you
think he chose to repeat
those words?

The repetition of the last two lines contributes to the poem

because it emphasizes the fact that the woman described
would always live on and people would always remember her
because of the poem. I also notice the repetition of certain
sounds (rhyming). For example, the first line of the poem ends
in the word day, and the third line of the poem ends in
May. This contributed to the poem because it make the
poem flow and sound better.

Shakespeare writes his sonnets with a specific rhyme scheme, called iambic
pentameter: