Start your discussion by examining the structure of the poem: Have your students count the lines and note the rhyme and meter. So long lives this, and this gives life to thee. So long as men can breathe or eyes can see, When in eternal lines to time thou grow’st: Nor shall death brag thou wander’st in his shade, Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,Īnd every fair from fair sometime declines,īy chance or nature’s changing course untrimm'd Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,Īnd summer’s lease hath all too short a date

If you teach Sonnet 18, here are some helpful inroads for leading your students through this masterpiece. No poet widens our experience and opens the world to us more through his poetic forms than does William Shakespeare and, of all his sonnets, Sonnet 18-his most famous-is an unmatched execution of the poetic art of expanding experience and vision. From that advantageous perspective, we see more clearly what is real. Through the compact form of poetry, poets situate us in the wide and wonderful world we inhabit. Poems widen, deepen, and heighten our experience.

With amazing self-confidence, the poet reflects on the permanence of his work (his eternal lines), and so even as the physical beauty of his beloved fades with the passage of time, the thought of it will grow and remain forever lovely through the vehicle of his poem – something which he presumes will be read ‘as long as men can breathe or eyes can see.’ He was right, of course.One of the chief reasons we read poetry is that it expands our experience and vision.The so-called reality passes with time, but the ideas and memories that it inspired can remain. The message here is that ideas and thoughts can sometimes prove more enduring than those physical things we sometimes mistakenly perceive as reality.His beloved, however, is more ‘temperate’ - more calm and pleasing than ‘nature’s changing course untrimm’d’ – (untrimmed being a reference to the sails of a boat, the vessel being at the mercy of the wind when not aligned properly).The ‘lease’ of summer is also often short – declining into autumn. No matter how fair the day or season, there is always an inevitable decline in its charms. After all, the harsh winds can blast the buds on the trees and flowers, and the sun can sometimes be too hot, or its brightness dimmed. He considers the possibility that the object of his devotion might not only be its equal (the summer's day) but better.With the famous opening lines ‘Shall I compare thee …’ the narrator wonders if the beauty of his beloved could be measured alongside something as splendid as a fine summer’s day.Shakespeare’s sonnet 18 is one of the best know of his poems, first published in 1609 - though most likely written some years earlier.

Sonnet 18 by william shakespeare