The Shakespearean sonnet has three quatrains and a concluding couplet. It consists of 14 lines, the rhyming pattern is usually abab cdcd efef gg, and written in iambic pentameter. All of his sonnets were written about love. Sonnet 18 is about the narrator being in love with a beautiful girl. In verse one, he asks if he should compare her to a summer's day but summer is not as beautiful and constant. Summer eventually dies and turns ugly but the girl he is referring to will never grow old and ugly and not even Death can say that his person's end is near.
The poem is written in iambic pentameter for the poems flow. When iambic pentameter stanzas are spoken out loud they flow and sound like a beat of a heart. Hearts are archetypes for love. He wanted the reader to say the poem along with the beat of his own heart to make that hearts beat more obvious and noticeable to the reader, just like when ones in love he can feel his own heart thumping against his chest.
English: Sonnet XXX of William Shakespeare on a wa...
POETRY SOCIETY POSTCARD
Poetry is an...I am like the iambic pentameter in this poem because I take life as it is. My life flows like a heart beat. I do not try to rush life, and I do not try to take it easy. I am iambic, free flowing.
This sonnet also has contrasting images, such as rough winds and darling buds, gold and dimmed, death and shade. Shakespeare does this intentionally in this poem to show how life is eternal. No matter how good is portrayed, even negatively, the positive images remain. It is preserving beauty against time and decay. I am like his use of contrasting images because whenever there is a hardship in my life I always compare it to...