Sonnet 18 Shakespeare Analysis

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everlasting, even after the beloved person's death. This concludes in the poem itself being the source of eternal beauty and therefore expression of love towards the addressed person. Sofia Pluch The structure is supported by the typical iambic pentameter and cross rhyme scheme. The first and third lines and the second and fourth lines of all quatrains rhyme, until the last two lines of the couplet, which both rhyme. Every single line of the poem is end-stopped and there is no flow over into the next lines, which leads to the impression that every single line shows a complete thought. The speaker opens the poem with a rhetorical question addressed to the beloved person (1.1 "Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?"), to stress the importance of the answer, which will be answered in the full course of the poem. Shakespeare primarily uses imagery of nature throughout the poem to express his feelings about the beauty of his beloved. Therefore one can find suitable stylistic devices, for example a metaphor in line 5 "heavens eye", depicting the sun or a personification of death in the third quatrain "Nor shall death brag thou wand'rest in his shade" (1.11). In line 7, one can perceive an alliteration "fair from fair", indicating that beauty and death form a contrast as a rule and also directly proclaiming that this is not the case for the beauty of his beloved person. The couplet at the end consists of an anaphora (1. 13f. "so long"), which is indicating that these two lines express the same idea. The addressed person is therefore characterized as superior to death, having a forever shining beauty, whose power will even conquer death. This also implies that Shakespeare himself declared his poem to be an everlasting poem, knowing his outraging ability of writing poets, and eternalizing words and thoughts. The beauty is secured through eternal words and these words are secured through the beauty itself. Personally, I believe that the simplicity and loveliness of this poem is outstanding and one main reason for the poem's success. The main theme is clearly timeless and I specifically like it because of its deeper theme of immortalization. Lack of time is a theme that has and will affect humans forever and therefore the wish for eternity reflects a universal experience.