Reflection #1
In Shakespeare’s sonnet, “Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer’s Day,” Shakespeare compares a warm summer’s day to the woman he loves. In the beginning two lines of the poem, he makes his first comparison saying “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day? Thou art more lovely and more temperate,” meaning Shakespeare is not sure if he should compare the woman he loves to a summer’s day because she is more lovely and more constant. He explains in the next two lines about how summer has flaws like the rough winds shake the beloved buds of may and that summer is to short, and he makes the point that the woman should not be compared to a summer’s day because in his eyes, she has no flaws. After, Shakespeare also explains how everything beautiful will loose beauty eventually due to nature’s course. In the two lines following to those above, he explains how her beauty and youth will never fade because he will always find her beautiful, no matter what effects nature’s course has on her. Showing his love for this woman, Shakespeare elaborates in his poem that Death will never claim her for ‘his’ own because she will always be his. Notice how Shakespeare makes death look like another person and how he explains how no one else could ever have her. That’s a perfect example of his unique figurative language. With the final couplet, “So as long as men can breathe and eyes can see, So long lives this and gives life to thee,” Shakespeare shows his true affection and his declaration of love for the woman he loves. It changes the pace of the poem by explaining that she can never die because she will live on forever in this poem, not comparing her to a summer’s day.
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