Sonnet 18英文赏析

Sonnet 18William Shakespeare（15641616）Shall I compare thee to a summers day? (A)Thou art more lovely and more temperate: (B)Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May, (A)And summers lease hath all too short a date, (B) Sometimes too hot the eye of heaven shines, (C) And often is his gold complexion dimmd; (D) And every fair form fair sometimes declines, (C)By chance, or natures changing course, untrimmed: (D)But thy eternal summer shall not fade, (E) Nor lose possession of that fair thou owst; (F)Nor shall death brag thou wanderrest in his shade, (E)When in eternal lines to time thou growst. (F)So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see, (G)So long lives this, and this gives life to thee. (G)A. Structure1. Sonnet 18 can be divided into four parts: three quatrains and a couplet.The first quatrain is from line 1 to line 4, the second from line 5 to line 8, and the third from line 9 to line 12. The couplet is the group of last two lines.2. The rhyme scheme of Sonnet 18 is ABABCDCDEFEFGG.Sonnet 18 contains 14 lines. The ends of line 1 and line 3 have the end rhyme /ei/, line 2 and line 4 rhyme with /eit/. And these four lines form the first quatrain. The line 5 and line 7 have the end rhyme /an/, while line 6 and line 8 have /d/. The same form is used in line 9 and line 11 and line 10 and line 2, which end with the rhyme /ed/ and / st/. However, the last two lines have their own end rhyme which is /i:/.3. Sonnet 18 is iambic pentameter.Each line of Sonnet 18 has five feet with an unaccented syllable followed by an accented syllable. Examples are as follow: “Shall I / compare / thee to / a sum / mers day?” has accents on “shall”, ”com” ,”thee”, ”a,mer” respectively.“Thou art / more love / ly and / more tem / perate:” has accents on “thou”, “more”, “ly”, “more”, “pe” respectively.B. Language use1. Several kinds of rhetoric are used.Metaphor: “The eye of heaven” means the sun.Simile: “Shall I compare thee to a summers day?” uses simile to compare the loved to a summers day.Personification: “his gold complexion” personates the summers day and “shake the darling buds” uses “shake” to personate the rough winds.Inversion: “And every fair form fair sometimes declines” can be in the order like this: “And every fair sometime declines from fair”.“By chance, or natures changing course, untrimmed” can be in the order like this: “untrimmed by chance or natures changing course”.2. Old English useThee: “you” as objectThou: “you” as subjectArt: areHath: hasThy: “your” followed by a consonant 3. Images“A summers day” means the season of summer.“Day” means a period of time. “Lease” means allotted time.“The eye of heaven” means sun. “His its” means sun.“Fair” means something beautiful. “This” means this poem.C. Appreciation1. Shakespeare compares his friend to a summers day. From line 1 to line 8, then he pays attention to praise his friends permanence, while from line 9 to line 14, and his focus is shifted towards expressing that poetry is immortal.2. Sonnet 18s first line asks a question: how can I compare you to a summers day? Line 2 answers the question that the loved one is more gentle and lovely.From line 4 to line 8, poet says summer is too short. And sometimes it will shine too much and can be burning while sometimes it will be dimmed when cloudy or overcast. All the beautiful things will finally lose their perfection for natures change and instability.From line 9 to line 14, poet starts praising an eternal beauty. This beauty is the beloved one and also the poems, and it is the poems make the