William Shakespeare's Sonnet 18 -
'Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer's Day' - is a popular love-sonnet. In this
video, the speaker attempts to read the meaning of the sonnet with reference to
the critical theory of deconstruction. 'Shall I compare thee' is a sonnet from
Shakespeare, it is called the 18th sonnet, addressed to some Mr. WH, or the
Black Lady. The contrast between the beauty to the summer 's day.
William Shakespeare’s sonnets were composed between
1593 and 1601, though not published
until 1609. That edition, The Sonnets of Shakespeare, consists of 154 sonnets,
all written in the form of three quatrains and a couplet that is now recognized
as Shakespearean. The sonnets fall into two groups. addressed to a beloved
friend, a handsome and noble young man, presumably the author’s patron, and
sonnets, to a malignant but fascinating “Dark Lady," who the poet loves in
spite of himself. Nearly all of Shakespeare’s sonnets examine the inevitable
decay of time and the immortalization of beauty and love in poetry.
Free play - undecidability of meanings-hegemony -subjectivity - Binary oppositions
Shakespeare’s sonnets were composed between
1593 and 1601, though not published until 1609. That edition, The Sonnets of
Shakespeare consists of 154 sonnets, all written in the form of three
quatrains and a couplet that is now recognized as Shakespearean. The sonnets
fall into two groups, addressed to a beloved friend, a handsome and noble young
man, presumably the author’s patron, and sonnets, to a malignant but
fascinating “Dark Lady," who the poet loves in spite of himself. Nearly
all of Shakespeare’s sonnets examine the inevitable decay of time and the
immortalization of beauty and love in poetry.
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 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.
Shall I compare thee to a summer's
day? This question is flattering in itself as a summer’s day is often
associated with beauty. Thou art more lovely and more temperate: Shakespeare,
however, explains that his love’s beauty exceeds that of the summer and does
not have its tendency towards unpleasant extremes:
“The darling buds of May” – the
beautiful, much-loved buds of the early summer “The eye of heaven” – Sun
Rough winds do shake the darling buds
of May, And summer's lease hath all too short a date: It should be noted that
at the time the sonnet was written, England had not yet adopted the Gregorian
calendar and May was considered a summer month. In the above quote, Shakespeare
describes the fragility and short duration of summer’s beauty. The use of the
word ‘lease’ reminds us of the fact that everything beautiful remains so for a
limited time only and after a while, its beauty will be forcibly taken away.
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines, And
often is his gold complexion dimmed, Shakespeare states that the sun, which he
personifies and refers to as ‘the eye of heaven’, can be too hot or blocked
from view by the clouds, unlike his ‘more temperate’ love.
And every fair from fair sometime declines, By
chance, or nature's changing course untrimmed: The repetition of the word
‘fair’ highlights the fact that this fate is inescapable for everything that
possesses beauty.
“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” Suddenly
(though it was foreshadowed a bit inline ), the tone and direction of the poem
change dramatically.
Is changing
Is mortal
Is trajectory
Is frail
Is infidelity
“Rough winds do shake the darling
buds of May”
“Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines“
Moving on from bashing summer and the
limitations inherent in nature, the speaker pronounces that the beloved he’s
speaking to isn’t subject to all of these rules he’s laid out.
“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” Shakespeare, however,
states that his love will not lose their beauty to death or time but will be
preserved through his poetry:
So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee. (As long as there are humans
alive on this planet Your life and beauty will live on through this sonnet)
Shakespeare’s self-assured claim makes it possible to argue that the purpose of
the poem was not actually to pay a beloved person a compliment but rather to
praise oneself for poetic skill.
William Shakespeare's Sonnet 18 -
'Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer's Day' - is a popular love-sonnet. In this
video, the speaker attempts to read the meaning of the sonnet with reference to
the critical theory of deconstruction. 'Shall I compare thee' is a sonnet from
Shakespeare, it is called the 18th sonnet, addressed to some Mr. WH, or the
Black Lady. It aims to help understand the theoretical concept of
'Deconstruction'. The contrast between the beauty to the summer 's day.
