Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer’s Day| Major English - XII | Grade 12 Major English Note

Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer’s Day

By William Shakespeare

About the Poem:

This is a love poem. Love makes everything else seem unimportant. Even very beautiful things like a summer’s day or flowers are not as beautiful as the person that is loved.

Shakespeare begins his poem, ‘Shall I compare Thee to a Summer's Day’ by asking his dear love if he should compare her with a summer's day. From line 3-8, he tells his love about the imperfection of nature which do not compare to her beauty. These are the imperfections: the winds are rough and unloving, as they shake the darling buds of May (flowers), the summer's day are not eternal, the sun sometimes is too hot— it does not keep a steady pleasant temperature, the sun's complexions often dark (dimmed), and every beauty in the world sometimes declines (nothing is forever).

In line 9 and 10, he wishes her eternal beauty; he does not want her to lose her beauty. In line 11, he wishes her eternal life; he does not want death to take her away. In the last three lines, he says that the only way one is remembered is through the printed word which will last forever. As long as there are humans to breathe, to see, to live, she will grow old (his love will grow old) with the printed word.

Important Questions and Answers

1.    What do you understand by immortality? Can art really immortalize people like Shakespeare says it does? or How can art immortalize People? or How does Shakespeare want to immortalize his love? Do you think art can really immortalize people?

Immortality is the eternal life or never ending life or living forever. Fame is earned by great deeds or works. Art does not preserve the people or physical beauty but it can preserve the essence or fame of the beauty. Life does not live immortally in a biological manner. A piece of art preserves name and deeds and works of the person. In this sense, an art can really immortalize people. Shakespeare makes his love alive or immortalize in his sonnet. He praises her highly by comparing her to a summer's day.

Art can really immortalize people. Most people fear death and try to avoid thinking about it. It is believed that much human progress results from people's effort to overcome death and gain immortality through lasting achievements. Shakespeare also tried to do the same in his sonnet. The conclusion is that as long as the human race remains alive and as long as men can read, his sonnet will live, and thus immortalize the woman the poet loves. Time and death may destroy the person and her beauty physically, but it is impossible to destroy her completely. Whenever people read this verse, they certainly remember the poet's beloved and she is brought to life in the mind of the readers.

2.    What is the main objective of Shakespeare comparing the beloved with the Summer's Day?
The main objective of Shakespeare comparing the beloved with the Summer's Day is to immortalize his love of his beloved. The poet compares his love with summer of which date is short. The flowers which blossom in summer will be dead when winter comes, but the love the poet feels will never die. His love for his beloved is better than a summer's day. She is more beautiful than the summer's day. The summer's day is all pleasant and lovely but his beloved is more pleasant and lovely. Even the change in the seasons cannot fade the beauty of his beloved. Her beauty recorded in print forever.

3.    What is Sonnet? Write a short not a Shakespearian sonnet?
A Sonnet is a poem of fourteen lines. Sonnets are usually written in iambic pentameter lines linked by an intricate (entangled; complex) rhyme scheme. 

There are two major patterns of rhyme in the English sonnet:
The Italian or Petrarchan sonnet, named after the fourteenth- century Italian poet Petrarch, falls into two main parts:

a.    The first part is an octave (eight lines) rhyming abba abba and a sestet (six lines) rhyming cde cde or some variants, such as cdc cdc. Petrarch's sonnnets were first imitated in England by Sir Thomas Wyatt in the early sixteenth century. The first eight lines (octave) presents the theme, raise the issue, doubt or query and the last six lines (sestet) answer the query, resolve the problem, drive the point by an abstract comment.

b.    Other English experiments in the sixteenth century also developed a stanza form called the English sonnet or the Shakespearean sonnet. This sonnet falls into three quatrains (four lines) and a concluding couplet (two lines): abab cdcd efef gg. The idea is developed in the three quatrains and the closing couplet is a summary.