NON-AFRICAN POETRY
Examine the theme of beauty in the poem “Shall I compare Thee to a Summer’s Day?”.
Explanation
This sonnet celebrates the inestimable beauty of a lover. To depict this rare beauty, the poet evokes images of summer in all its splendor in the first three quatrains. First, although the poet views and admires summer for being lovely and temperate, he strongly believes that summer's beauty can in no way be compared to his lover's beauty. This is because while summer's "lease" is short-lived, the persona's lover's beauty is not time bound.
Then, although summer's weather can be both unstable and unpredictable since it is sometimes too hot and sometimes overcast, his lover's beauty will ever remain untainted and serene. And then, to the poet, the lover's beauty is not only unparalleled; it is also eternal. Death itself can never boast of oblitering beauty, for her beauty lives in the very poetry that celebrates her. The person's celebration of his lover's beauty is given the strongest expression in the concluding couplet which underlines his unwavering conviction that as generations of people read this poem, her immortality is assured.
Points to note:
(a) Knowledge of the sonnet form and how and it expresses aspects of his lover's
(i) The contrast with summer's temperate but shortlived nature.
(ii) The comparison with summer's unsteady heat which sometimes keeps its gold complexion dimm'd
(iii) The supremacy of his lover's beauty, being immortal i.e. immortalised by the poem.
(iv) The generations of humanity who read the poem and keep her beauty alive.