Shall I compare thee to a summers day- william shakespeare

Essay by shammimkJunior High, 9th gradeA, June 2004

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In the sonnet 'Shall I compare Thee To A Summers Day' The poet William Shakespeare uses countless types of imagery but the question is which types can be interpreted as beautiful and which part would be interpreted as anything but beautiful.

'Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?

Thou art more lovely and more temperate'

Shakespeare starts this sonnet with a rhetorical question which he answers in the second line. In these two lines Shakespeare establishes his feelings for the woman that he loves comparing her to summer It is during this time when the flowers are blooming, trees are full of leaves, the weather is warm, and it is generally thought of as an enjoyable time during the year. He then goes on to say no you are a great deal more beautiful more warm more loving than the summer in his opinion.

'Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,

And summers lease hath all too short a date'

These two lines do not mention his lover at all.

These two lines tell us about the faults that Shakespeare thinks summer has. He is saying that summer is not always perfect at the beginning during May there are rough cold winds and summer does not last very long he does not say his lover has these faults neither does he say that his lover does not.

Again the next four lines mention faults of summer and do not mention his lover. What Shakespeare is trying to say is that summer has its extremes when the sun is blistering hot and unbearable 'Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,' and sometimes the sun is blocked out by clouds and is not visible 'And often is his gold complexion dimmed'. In this line Shakespeare admits...