Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day? (Sonnet 18) Discussion Questions

1. Based on this poem, what does the speaker think about the recipient?

 

 They are very fond of the person in whom they speak of, to them there is nothing like them.

 

2. Do you notice any connections between the comparisons the poem makes or are they just things to say about a summer's day?

 

 There are comparisons that are somewhat negative when pertaining to the summer, but when it is in reference to the person being compared to it, they are everything good about it, but a never fading version of it.

 

3. What are the specific points of comparison between the recipient and a summer's day, and how does the recipient stack up in the comparison?

 

"...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..."

All of the other details are expressed while telling of their flaws or short life during the course of the summer season while preserving the image of the beloved on who is being compared as timeless and unchanging, not effected by time, their beauty is eternally the beautiful parts of summer.

 

4. Does the poem have a purpose? Does the speaker want something from the recipient? Does he want to say something special to him or her?

 

 The poem's purpose is most likely to express some deep feelings toward the recipient, most obviously feelings of awestruck wonder in relation to their beauty.

If anything, the speaker would only want to invoke or recite their feelings to the recipient in order to provoke a response that might be leading up to a marriage proposal.

The speaker most definitely wants to say something special to the recipient because of the emotion poured into the descriptions and comparisons.

 

5. According to the speaker, exactly what is it about the recipient that makes him or her so wonderful?

 

 Their eternal beauty will never fade, they will never lose possession of how fair they are.

 

6. Can we tell from the poem whether the speaker or the recipient is a man or woman? How can we tell, or why can't we?

 

 If the time period were taken into consideration, a conclusion can be drawn that would mean that the most likely gender to speak in such a way would be a man trying to woo his beloved mistress.

We can tell because a woman would not usually make such a comparison or use such words to describe a man, but would more describe  woman, rough winds and all.

 

7. Is the poem one continuous statement, or can it be broken into parts? If it can be broken up, where are the breaks and what happens in each part?

 

 It could effectively be broken up into parts but when stated as a continuous statement it conveys a sense of overall overwhelmed state of emotion that would otherwise be fragmented if the poem was to be separated into parts.

 

8. The poem begins more or less literally comparing the person being addressed to "a summer's day," but shifts at line 9 from the possible to impossible. Consider the reader impact and what the poem gains by this shift in meaning; interpret and explain.

 

 As cliché as it may sound, love makes the impossible possible, it overwhelms the senses and causes an unrealistic quality to be attributed to the object of the affection. The impact that it has is that there are not enough reasonable and possible things to compare the recipient to so the speaker has to resort to more unrealistic comparisons and descriptions to try and put his feelings into words.