Sonnet 18

click to edit

Essential Nature

Organization:

Structure of Work

click to edit

Form

written in iambic pentameter

Tone

The length of lines.

14 lines

Progression of themes

Starts slowly with the same theme

All the lines are even

Progression of the themes

Same weight of words

click to edit

Mood

click to edit

focuses on love and romance

10 syllables per line

Opens with 'shall I compare thee to a summer's day'

click to edit

Then continues the subject

has a naturalistic theme and comparisons

click to edit

romance, love

Flows topic from Immortality to beauty

joy, happiness

click to edit

Talks about the subject as immortal

the theme could be considered comforting

Rhyme scheme

The rhyme scheme of sonnet 18 is: ABAB CDCD EFEF GG

click to edit

soft

The poet wished to express a comforting and romantic theme on the reader by representing love in this happy and ideal sort of way. This is done by comparing the love interest to nature and the beauty it can hold.

Quatrins-lines 1-12

click to edit

Quatrain 1 (ABAB):

Sets up the comparison, discussing why the beloved is even better than a summer’s day.

Quatrain 2 (CDCD):

Explores how summer is fleeting and imperfect, but the beloved’s beauty is more enduring.

Quatrain 3 (EFEF):

Reflects on how death and time might try to take away beauty, but the beloved’s beauty will live on.

Couplet-Lines 13-14

The closing couplet summarizes the theme or presents a resolution, asserting that as long as the poem lives, the beloved’s beauty will be immortalized.

Theme

The central theme is immortality through poetry. Shakespeare argues that while physical beauty fades, his beloved’s beauty will live on forever in the lines of the sonnet.

click to edit