Sonnet 18 Essay
A sonnet is a form of a poem that originated in Europe. One of the best known sonnet writers is Willliam Shakespeare because he wrote 154 of them. In sonnet 18, Shakespeare used numerous literary elements in order to prove his thesis. This sonnet is a comparison to nature and a woman who will never lose her beauty. In sonnet 18, different literary elements such as personification, metaphors, and an anaphora are used in order to prove that nature is never constant, but her beauty is constant and will last forever. In this first quatrain Shakespeare attempts to compare her to a summer’s day but comes to the conclusion that she is lovelier and more constant. Then he starts to complain about the unfortunate weather conditions in the month of May and the faults in summer. In line 3, “Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May” Shakespeare is using personification. He’s giving the rough wins a human quality to show how these rough violent winds shake the beautiful flowers in May. In the second quatrain, he goes on to talk about the unfortunate parts of summer. He explains that the sun is too hot and sometimes it goes behind the clouds. He then makes the statement that everything beautiful will eventually lose its beauty by nature’s misfortune or the natural changes that aging brings. In this quatrain, personification and a metaphor is used with one term. In this sentence, “Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines”, the eye of heaven he is referring to is the sun. He’s using personification because he’s referring to the sun as an eye in the sky which is a human body part. This is also a metaphor because he’s describing the sun as the “eye of heaven” so you can figure out what he’s actually talking about. In the third quatrain, this is where he starts the comparison of nature to the women. He begins to say that her youth will not die or that she will stay looking and feeling young for a long period of time. Then he goes on to say she’ll never lose the