Analysis Of William Shakespeare's Sonnet 18

SUMMARY
The speaker of Sonnet 18 is writing a love poem for a friend. In the sonnet, his beauty is contrasted to that of a summer’s day. Summer may be pleasant, but the speaker claims that his friend’s beauty far surpasses it. For one, the man is more temperate - he is gentler, more constant, and more controlled. He is safely more reliant than a summer’s day. Summer has harsh winds. Sometimes, it is too hot. Other times, the sun is blocked by clouds. However, unlike ever-changing summer, his friend’s lovely appearance is consistent. Moreover, the beauty of summer declines, as it passes into fall. The speaker claims that his friend’s ‘eternal summer’ (line 9)   his beauty - will never fade, even if he were to age and die. According to the speaker, so long as his verse survives, humanity lives, and men can see, his beloved friend will be immortalized   in full bloom, at his prime   in the lines of verse.

CONTRIBUTION TO WESTERN LITERATURE
The sonnet is a 14-line poem originating from Italy, during the 13th century, under the heavy influence of the poet Francesco Petrarch. Brought into English literature in the 16th century by Thomas Wyatt and Henry Howard, modifications were made to the Italian sonnet form, from which originated the English, or Elizabethan sonnet. Substituting the Italian octave-sestet division, Elizabethan sonnets were divided into 3 quatrains (rhymed abab cdcd efef) and a closing couplet (rhymed gg), with every line written in iambic pentameter. This format determines the subject of the sonnet: a certain idea is developed in each quatrain, before the sonnet wraps up, and states its theme in the couplet.
Shakespeare had written Sonnet 18 as part of a larger sonnet sequence, simply titled The Sonnets.
In a nutshell, they are a collection of 154 sonnets dealing with themes such as love, friendship, beauty, politics, and mortality. Written over a period of several years, the sonnets were sectioned according to their content. Sonnet 18 falls...