Sonnet 18: Love, Power, and Immortality

Sonnet 18: Love, Power, and Immortality

Russian novelist, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, once said that “If you were to destroy the belief in immortality in mankind, not only love but every living force on which the continuation of all life in the world depended, would dry up at once”. People cannot exist without some form of higher idea. As humans, we are always thinking of eternity of an idea so immense, that it simply cannot be understood. It is for this reason that for centuries people have yearned for the currently unattainable goal that is immortality. Sonnet 18, undoubtedly the most famous of Shakespeare’s 154 sonnets, is predominantly about love and the power it gives the narrator to immortalize the subject of the sonnet. Shakespeare offers his loved ones’ immortality through verse in Sonnet 18. He does so by issuing them somewhat unusual compliments and assures her that she will live on given that mankind continues to read the sonnet.

Sonnet 18 starts out with a rhetorical question in which he compares the subject’s beauty to that of a Summer’s day. “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day? Thou art more lovely and more temperate” (Shakespeare 1-2). Shakespeare uses poetry as a tool to immortalize those he cares about. He views his verses as a means of preserving the identity of a friend or loved one. This rhetorical questioning is what literary critic, Helen Vendler, refers to as the “whim of a inventive mind” (Vendler 2). Shakespeare compares his friend’s beauty to that of a summer’s day, however, he also mentions that she is in fact more beautiful due to the many flaws of Summer (“more temperate”). Initially, Shakespeare praises his friend without coming off as ostentatious; “compare thee to a summer’s day” (Shakespeare 1), however by line 9 his friend is summer; “But thy eternal summer shall not fade”. To truly praise the subject, Shakespeare feels the need to disapprove the initial metaphor he uses to describe the subject.

Shakespeare’s passionate confidence in his ability to preserve memories forever through verse is not only apparent in Sonnet 18. In Sonnet 55, he also expresses his intention to immortalize his friend. The first couplet of Sonnet 55, “Not marble, nor the gilded monuments Of princes, shall outlive this powerful rhyme;” (Shakespeare line 1-2). Shakespeare’s intention to preserve the memory of his friend are far more apparent in Sonnet 55 then in Sonnet 18. He firmly believes that his poetry will last far longer than monuments built of marble. Time only effects material things (marble) and will have no effect on his poetry. Once again, this is only possible if mankind continues to read his verses.

Though the initial metaphor comes off as heartfelt, it isn’t enough in Shakespeare’s mind. He continues to compliment her and describe why even this comparison isn’t worthy of her beauty. He uses imagery paired with personification to make specific criticisms of summer to further describe the extent of the subject’s beauty. “Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May, And summer’s lease hath all too short a date” (Shakespeare 3-4). At the time that Shakespeare wrote Sonnet 18, England still considered May to be a summer month. In this couplet, he describes the short duration of summer’s beauty. He does so by using the word lease to remind the reader that eventually nature will forcibly take away the beauty of summer. Shakespeare uses legal terminology in the second line of this couplet (“And summer’s lease hath all to short a date”). The summer holds a “lease” on a part of the year, yet the lease is too short. While the first stanza is both gentle and light, the second stanza introduces a farm more somber quality, which brings the reader to realize that we have gone from what was a lovely summer’s day to the end of a season.

Shakespeare concludes his summer’s day metaphor begins to widen the scope of the sonnet from a single day to an entire summer. The third stanza begins with a contradiction, which aims to support the immortalization of the subject. He then widens the scope even further; “Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st in his shade”. Shakespeare then continues the summer metaphor, however, it has now become the woman’s “eternal summer”. His goal in this sonnet is to attempt to defeat both time and death and he does so by personifying death in the second to last stanza.

The final stanza in Shakespeare’s Sonnet 18 act as a reaffirmation of his hope to immortalize the memory of the woman’s youth and beauty. “So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see, so long lives this, and this gives life to thee” (Shakespeare 13-14). He is essentially implying that if mankind is alive and reading this sonnet, the woman’s memory will be immortal. All the previous verses describe a summer’s day as a fleeting moment. The final stanza summarizes Shakespeare’s wishes by stating that if people exist, the sonnet will exist. If the sonnet exists, his friend’s memory will live on forever. In the final stanza of the sonnet, Shakespeare chooses to use rather ambiguous language (“so long as men can breathe”) to express his belief that his verses will allow the woman to achieve immortality. “Even in Q3, the triumph is tempered: the eternity of the beloved is paradoxically expressed in intrinsically limited seasonal terms, as an