William Shakespeare’s Sonnet 18 is part of a group of 126 sonnets Shakespeare wrote that are addressed to a young man of great beauty and promise. In this group of sonnets, the speaker urges the young man to marry and perpetuatehis virtues through children, and warns him about the destructive power of time,age, and moral weakness. Sonnet 18 focuses on the beauty of the young man, andhow beauty fades, but his beauty will not because it will be remembered byeveryone who reads this poem.Shakespeare starts the poem with a metaphoric question in line one asking ifhe should compare the man to a summer’s day. This asks if he should compare thebeauty of a summer’s day to the beauty of the young man about whomShakespeare is writing. Line two of this poem states “Thou art more lovely andmore temperate.” Temperate is used as a synonym for moderate by the author. Inline two the speaker is describing the man as more lovely and more moderate thana summer’s day. This emphasizes the man’s beauty and how the man is viewed bythe speaker. Line three, “Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,” tellswhy the man’s beauty is greater than that of a summer’s day. Shakespeare uses“rough winds” to symbolize imperfections. The speaker is implying that there areno imperfections in the young man, but there are in the summer, so the man cannotbe compared to a summer’s day. In line four the speaker adds to this thought bysaying that the summer also does not last as long as the man’s beauty therefore itcannot be compared to it. Line five states another imperfection of the summer. Shakespeare uses “the eye of heaven” as a metaphor in this line to describe thesun. In line six Shakespeare uses the phrase “gold complexion dimmed” todescribe the sun again which means that sometimes the sun is not hot enough, andthat, as said in line five, some...
