Shakespeare's Sonnet 18
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 owest;
Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou growest:
So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
So long lives this and this gives life to thee.
Response by: Peyton Jones
I chose William Shakespeare's "Sonnet 18" because it is a classic example of lyric poetry. The language, the feelings it provokes, and the rhyme scheme all show this poem to be a lyric poem.
The language is beautiful in this poem. He is comparing his friend to summer in the opening lines by saying they are both more lovely and temperate than a summer's day. He then says some comments that show the negative side of summer, like the idea that it is too short or that it can be too hot at times as seen in lines 4-5. But as the poem goes on and ends, Shakespeare turns the beauty of his loved one into this very poem so that it is immortalized as long as it can still be read, and thereby saying that even though summer ends, his the beauty of his loved one will last forever.
This poem is seen as lyrical because it provokes some strong emotions and thoughts from the reader, such as love and the idea of immortality. The reader's interest is captured by the way Shakespeare compliments his love by comparing them to summer, and then he makes negative comments towards summer. The interest is still captured then by Shakespeare saying, and I'm paraphrasing, "Well since summer has is downfalls and you are so beautiful and perfect, I'm going to make your beauty last forever by making it into this poem." The idea of being able to make someone or even someone's attributes last for eternity by simply putting them into words on paper is capable of provoking very strong emotions in readers, and this poem has done just that over decades.
In the article under Lyric Poems, it is stated that lyrical poetry is lyrical because it uses "memorable language-made memorable by its rhythmical shaping and phonological patterning." Sonnet 18 does just that. It would be easy to put this poem to music and turn it into lyrics because it has beautiful language, for one, but it also follows a simple, easy-to-follow rhyming pattern that rhymes every other line in an A-B-A-B pattern.
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 owest;
Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou growest:
So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
So long lives this and this gives life to thee.
Response by: Peyton Jones
I chose William Shakespeare's "Sonnet 18" because it is a classic example of lyric poetry. The language, the feelings it provokes, and the rhyme scheme all show this poem to be a lyric poem.
The language is beautiful in this poem. He is comparing his friend to summer in the opening lines by saying they are both more lovely and temperate than a summer's day. He then says some comments that show the negative side of summer, like the idea that it is too short or that it can be too hot at times as seen in lines 4-5. But as the poem goes on and ends, Shakespeare turns the beauty of his loved one into this very poem so that it is immortalized as long as it can still be read, and thereby saying that even though summer ends, his the beauty of his loved one will last forever.
This poem is seen as lyrical because it provokes some strong emotions and thoughts from the reader, such as love and the idea of immortality. The reader's interest is captured by the way Shakespeare compliments his love by comparing them to summer, and then he makes negative comments towards summer. The interest is still captured then by Shakespeare saying, and I'm paraphrasing, "Well since summer has is downfalls and you are so beautiful and perfect, I'm going to make your beauty last forever by making it into this poem." The idea of being able to make someone or even someone's attributes last for eternity by simply putting them into words on paper is capable of provoking very strong emotions in readers, and this poem has done just that over decades.
In the article under Lyric Poems, it is stated that lyrical poetry is lyrical because it uses "memorable language-made memorable by its rhythmical shaping and phonological patterning." Sonnet 18 does just that. It would be easy to put this poem to music and turn it into lyrics because it has beautiful language, for one, but it also follows a simple, easy-to-follow rhyming pattern that rhymes every other line in an A-B-A-B pattern.
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