Summary:
William Shakespeare's Sonnet 18 ("Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?") enhances the idea of beauty higher then that of nature, making nature's seemingly flawless beauty seem dull compared to the beauty of the beloved. Shakespeare's use of similes, metaphors, and other devices reinforces the idea of beauty living on forever through the words of his poem.
During the Renaissance period, most poets were writing love poems about their lovers/mistresses. The poets of this time often compared love to high, unrealistic, and unattainable beauty. Shakespeare, in his sonnet 18, continues the tradition of his time by comparing the speakers' love/mistress to the summer time of the year. It is during this time of the year that the flowers and the nature that surround them are at there peak for beauty. The theme of the poem is to show the speakers true interpretation of beauty. Beauties worst enemy is time and although beauty might fade it can still live on through a person's memory or words of a poem. The speaker realizes that beauty, like the subject of the poem, will remain perfect not in the eyes of the beholder but the eyes of.....
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