What is the meaning of the poem "Sonnet 18", created by William Shakespeare?

Question

Sonnet 18
William Shakespeare


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 dimmed;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance, or nature's changing course untrimmed.
But thy eternal summer shall not fade
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st;
Nor shall death brag thou wand'rest 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.

Answer 1

I was going to answer this much the same way Killer Queen did. The gist is that even though her beauty may fade as each month fades to the next and each year changes everything under the heavens. Her beauty will be seen and remembered. "But thy eternal summer shall not fade" "So long as men can breathe or eyes can see, So long lives this, and this gives life to thee."
He is saying that her beauty will go on as long as there are people to see and to tell about it. Remember many times when elder author's use the word "breathe" They usually are saying the words " Speak or to talk of."

I just had a thought. I hope this question is for your own purposes and not for school work. I'll take it as I hope it is and for personal knowledge.
good luck to you. bye.

Answer 2

Sonnet 18 Analysis

Answer 3

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RE:
What is the meaning of the poem "Sonnet 18", created by William Shakespeare?
Sonnet 18
William Shakespeare


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...

Answer 4

Bare in mind that he is talking about English summer, and not the 40C or 100F I'm used to.

Simply put, he is comparing the woman of his affection to a summer day, and no matter how good, she is better. The sun goes behind a cloud but she always shines, Rose buds get bruised by the wind, but she is always gentle, and lastly she will live on forever in his words, because the poem could mean no-one else but her and we will all recognise her from it. As always, look at the metre used and the rhyming pattern. The beauty of this poem is tied to the strict structural rules that a sonnet is bound by.

Answer 5

this sonnet is basically about shakespeare's admiration 4 the girl..

the gist of it is tat not even the sun,rough winds or even death can change the beauty of the girl 2 him..

the last 2 lines - my fav part of the sonnet - says that as long as ppl still live, his love will never change..