Sonnet 18

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Sonnet 18 is one of the most famous of the 154 sonnets by the English poet William Shakespeare , first published in 1609.

content

As in sonnets 1 to 17, the poet here addresses a young man he loves and asks whether he should compare him to a summer's day : Shall I compare thee to a summer's day? From the second line on, the poet finds arguments against it: the youth is more lovely and more moderate, the summer day is changeable and can lose its beauty at any time, the sun can sometimes shine too hot, sometimes be covered by clouds. In the third stanza the poet proclaims as an antithesis his wish that the youth in the lines of the sonnet may live on forever. In the final two-liner he dedicates his poetry to the eternal life of his beloved:

So long as men can breathe or eyes can see

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

structure

Sonnet 18 is a typical Shakespeare sonnet with 14 lines in five-note iambics , arranged in three quartets (four-line lines) and a final two-line line .