![]() ![]() ![]() He comes up with four reasons why summer isn't perfect: wind (stretching the definition of summer to include May), brevity, heat, and clouds. ![]() But for the octave, or first eight lines of Sonnet 18, Shakespeare's speaker makes the case that there is no point in this practice. ![]() The rhetorical question of the first line invokes the long tradition of sonnet writers and courtly lovers in praising the beauty of the ladies they write about by comparing them to the beauties of nature. Sonnet 18, possibly the most famous in the entire sequence, follows the Petrarchan format in that it poses a problem in the octave, or first eight lines, and then offers a solution in the sestet, or last six lines, although the solution doesn't become completely clear until the final couplet. But the subject's beauty will never diminish, nor will it be forgotten when he dies, because he will live in this sonnet, in "eternal lines to time." As long as people are alive and can read, this sonnet will keep the subject alive in the memories of people in the future. Besides, everything that is beautiful at some point becomes less beautiful, either as a result of chance or the regular course of nature. Sometimes the sun is too hot at other times, clouds obscure it. There can be harsh winds in May, and summer doesn't last very long. There would be no point to doing so, the speaker asserts, because the subject is so far superior. Sonnet 18 begins with the speaker asking the subject if the speaker should compare the subject's beauty to that of a summer's day. ![]()
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