the analysis of sonnet 18

THE ANALYSIS OF SONNET 18
Sonnet 18 is one of the most famous sonnets of Shakespeare. In this sonnet, he compares his friend to a summer’s day. Shakespeare’s use of imagery and figurative language creates vivid picture for me.
Summer is a warm and delightful time of the year which is often associated with rest and recreation. The first two line, in the form of question, show the poet’s idea that his beloved friend is more desirable and has a more even temper than summer by comparing his friend to a summer’s day. In the third and forth line, the speaker begins to personify nature. Basically, strong summer winds threaten those new flower buds that popped up in May, and summer just doesn’t last very long. In the fifth and sixth line, the speaker’s saying sometimes the sun is too hot, and other times you can’t even see it at all. In the seventh and eighth line, the poet declares that everything beautiful must eventually fade away and lose its charm, either by accident or by natural circles. In the line nine and ten, the poet points out that his friend has the best characters of summer and these will never go away. In the last four lines, the poet is saying that his friend’s life and beauty will live on through this sonnet.
Some rhetorical devices are used in this poem, such as contrast, metaphor, personification and exaggeration. We can see that the sun is regarded as “the eye of heaven” which is allegory. We can find the word “his” used to describe the sun and the death which gives them life as the illustration of the use of personification. This makes the images the poet points out linked to each other and form the whole passage vividly.
In conclusion, the poet compares his beloved friend to summer, and then by describing the instability of summer to show his friend’s immortality. His purpose is to praise the beauty of his friend. Connecting the background, the poet is praising the spirit of Renaissance-Humanism.