The poet starts the praise of his beloved without ostentation and slowly builds the image of his beloved into that perfect being. Shakespeare uses these devices to also ensure the permanence of his poem, ensuring that it is everlasting and never succumbs to death like his beloved. Several poetic devices enhance the poem’s meaning through the use of form, imagery, and figurative language to express how his beloved possesses an eternal beauty that far surpasses the brightness of that all-too-fleeting summer day.

The poem is straightforward in language and intent. The poet begins with an opening question: “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?” and spends the rest of the poem answering that question. The stability of love and its power to immortalize someone is the overarching theme of this poem. Shakespeare uses Sonnet 18 to praise his beloved’s beauty and describe all the ways in which their beauty is preferable to a summer day. Poetry Explication: Sonnet 18 (William Shakespeare)