Visualizing Shakespeare's 'Sonnet 18'

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IShall I compare Thee William Shakespeare. The following presentation of Sonnet 18, one of Shakespeare's most famous, will help you visualize the rhyming pattern of the sonnets. I capitalized the last part of each line and typed a letter to the left of the line to indicate the pattern. The meaning of each line appears at right. Sonnet XVIII (18) Addressed to the Young Man Quatrain 1 (four-line stanza) A Shall I compare thee to a summer's DAY? | If I compared you to a summer day | B Thou art more lovely and more temperATE: | I'd have to say you are more beautiful and serene: | A Rough winds do shake the darling buds of MAY, | By comparison, summer is rough on budding life, | B And summer's lease hath all too short a DATE: | And doesn't last long either: | Comment: In Shakespeare's time, May (Line 3) was considered a summer month. Quatrain 2 (four-line stanza) C Sometime too hot the eye of heaven SHINES, | At times the summer sun [heaven's eye] is too hot, | D And often is his gold complexion DIMM'D; | And at other times clouds dim its brilliance; | C And every fair from fair sometime deCLINES, | Everything fair in nature becomes less fair from time to time, | D By chance or nature's changing course unTRIMM'D; | No one can change [trim] nature or chance; | Comment:"Every fair" may also refer to every fair woman, who "declines" because of aging or bodily changes. Quatrain 3 (four-line stanza) E But thy eternal summer shall not FADE | However, you yourself will not fade | F Nor lose possession of that fair thou OWEST; | Nor lose ownership of your fairness; | E Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st in his SHADE, | Not even death will claim you, | F When in eternal lines to time thou GROWEST: | Because these lines I write will immortalize you: | Couplet (two rhyming lines) G So long as men can breathe or

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