Poem Shall I Compare Three to a Summer Day by Shakespeare

Shakespeare

Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer's Day

The explication of Shakespeare's sonnet, "Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer's Day" has been done ad nauseum. A quick web search will pull up a million websites dedicated to Shakespearean sonnets, and each of these domains will have its own, slightly different interpretation and analysis of the oft-cited and much praised Sonnet 18. But the reality is the poem says what it says and while some will debate the finer points of the poem (the language, the historical relevance, the imagery, the themes, the dangling modifiers, etc.), the overall meaning is straightforward and easy to apprehend, especially when compared to some of the more unintelligible Shakespearean sonnets (number 108 comes to mind). So, what is the overall meaning of the poem? Allow me to answer that question by doing another, painstakingly banal, explication of "Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer's Day.

The first line of the sonnet is a question to both the reader and the muse of the poem. One can suggest that there's a seductive quality to it as it offers intrigue and suspense about the prospect of an exciting metaphorical compliment. "Shall I compare thee to a Summer's day?" Shall I compare you (the subject of the poem) to a summer's day? One can resist the temptation to answer that question with a resounding "no" -- "no, you may not."

The second line of the poem begins the comparison: "Thou art more lovely and more temperate." The speaker says to his paramour, you are more lovely and evenhanded, cool-mannered/constant than a summer day.

In the third, fourth, fifth, and sixth line, the speaker starts to discuss the drawbacks of summer, the more ephemeral qualities. "Rough winds do shake the darling buds," meaning winds have a ravaging effect on the beautiful flowers of late spring/early summer. Line four - "And summer's lease hath too short a date" - points out that summer is too short. Line five -- "Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines" -- summer is too hot under the rays of the sun. Line six -- "And often in his gold complexion dimm'd" -- summer's gold complexion, again referring to the sun, is dimmed by clouds (presumably). So, in summation, summer is too rough on flowers, too short, too hot, and often marred by clouds. Summer is not without its faults, it's not perfect.

Line Seven kind of recapitulates this idea, that summer has its faults, that it is fallible. But speaking more generally -"And every fair from fair sometime declines" - means the beauty (not only summer) is fleeting, that it's not eternal (Mabillard).

In line eight the speaker explains why beauty fades and why people are susceptible to change, "By chance or nature's changing course untrimm'd." In other words, either by chance or fate things change, regress, and/or wilt.

In line nine the speaker pivots and makes an exception to the maxim he/she/it has just established in the previous lines, the speaker says "But thy eternal summer shall not fade." The 'eternal summer,' the youth of the subject will not fade, nor will the beauty of the subject fade or wilt, line ten "Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest" nor will death diminish or claim the subject, line eleven "Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st in his shade."

It should be noted that in line nine the speaker really connects the subject to summer, 'thy eternal summer.' Up until that point, the speaker was describing general beauty in terms of problematic summer phenomena. But 'thy eternal summer' is your (the subject's) eternal youth/beauty. The adjective 'eternal' is key to understanding the main theme of the poem, which is that the subject has forever-lasting youth and beauty that not even death itself can claim (Bloom).