Introduction
Without question, William Shakespeare’s Sonnet 18 is one of the best known and most beloved poems in the English language. William immortalises his lover in verse, saying that though beauty must pass away all too soon, she and her loveliness will live on in his lines as long as there are men to read them.
SHALL I compare thee to a
summer’s day?*
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer’s lease hath all too short a date;
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimm’d;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance or nature’s changing course untrimm’d;*
But thy eternal summer shall not fade,
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st;*
Nor shall death brag thou wander’st in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou grow’st:*
So long as men can breathe or eyes can
see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to
thee.*
William is not merely saying that his lover’s beauty is lovelier and less changeable than that of an English summer. He is saying that his verses give to her beauty a serenity and a life even beyond age and death, that is, beyond life’s autumn and winter.
That is, all beauty fades eventually, either through mishap or because that is how Nature is. In sailing, sails are ‘trimmed’ (adjusted) to maximise efficiency: similarly, Beauty loses efficiency over time, like a boat that is no longer sailing under full power. ‘Trim’ comes from an Old English word, trymman, meaning ‘make firm, arrange’.
‘That fair thou owest’ is the beauty (being fair of face) that she has borrowed from Time and would normally have to pay back. See The Seikilos Epitaph for a similar sentiment.
That is, Death cannot boast that she must eventually fall into his shadow (see Psalm 23:4) because she has been immortalised in verse, and with each passing year her beauty becomes known more widely, and so paradoxically grows.
William’s lover is made immortal in his verse, and while there are still men to read his lines, his poem (‘this’) will mean that she and her beauty never really die.
Archive
Word Games
Spinners Find in Think and Speak
For each group of words, compose a sentence that uses all three. You can use any form of the word: for example, cat → cats, go → went, or quick → quickly, though neigh → neighbour is stretching it a bit.
This exercise uses words found in the accompanying passage.
1 Darling. Gold. Lovely.
2 I. Every. Sometime.
3 Man. Nature. Shine.
Variations: 1. include direct and indirect speech 2. include one or more of these words: although, because, despite, either/or, if, unless, until, when, whether, which, who 3. use negatives (not, isn’t, neither/nor, never, nobody etc.)
Subject and Object Find in Think and Speak
Use each word below in two sentences, first as the subject of a verb, and then as the object of a verb. It doesn’t have to be the same verb: some verbs can’t be paired with an object (e.g. arrive, happen), so watch out for these.
This exercise uses words found in the accompanying passage.
1. Death. 2. Shine. 3. Art. 4. Chance. 5. Man. 6. Possession. 7. Can. 8. Rough. 9. Time.
Variations: 1.use your noun in the plural (e.g. cat → cats), if possible. 2.give one of your sentences a future aspect (e.g. will, going to). 3.write sentences using negatives such as not, neither, nobody and never.
Statements, Questions and Commands Find in Think and Speak
Use each word below in a sentence. Try to include at least one statement, one question and one command among your sentences. Note that some verbs make awkward or meaningless words of command, e.g. need, happen.
This exercise uses words found in the accompanying passage.
1 Shake. 2 Can. 3 Time. 4 Date. 5 Shine. 6 Change. 7 Course. 8 Wind. 9 Eye.
Variations: 1. use a minimum of seven words for each sentence 2. include negatives, e.g. isn’t, don’t, never 3. use the words ‘must’ to make commands 4. compose a short dialogue containing all three kinds of sentence: one statement, one question and one command
Add Vowels Find in Think and Speak
Make words by adding vowels to each group of consonants below. You may add as many vowels as you like before, between or after the consonants, but you may not add any consonants or change the order of those you have been given. See if you can beat our target of common words.
brths (5)
berths. births. breathes. breaths. broths.
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