Homework Help: Shakespeare's Sonnet 18 (SHALL I COMPARE THEE TO A SUMMER'S DAY?)

hey there i'm carrie and in this video i'm going to be talking about shakespeare's sonnet 18 also known as shall i compare thee to a summer's day now if you were wanting technical information on the sonnets you know kind of a format structure rhyme and meter type thing i've made a separate video on that so i'll link that in the video notes and you can learn all about that now the first thing i'm going to do in this video is read through the entire sonnet so if you just need to listen to it for class that'll be right up front then i'll go back and break it down line by line cover any vocabulary um kind of get to what this older english means and talk a little bit about theme and symbolism and things like that i've got time stamps in the video notes so scroll down click around find exactly what it is you need alright let's get into sonnet 18. shall i compare thee to a summer's day thou art more lovely and more temperate rough winds do shake the darling buds of may and summer's lease hath all too short a date sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines and often is his gold complexion dimmed and every fare from fair sometime declines by chance or nature's changing course untrimmed but thy eternal summer shall not fade nor lose possession of that fair thou oast nor shall death brag thou wanderest in his shade when in eternal lines in time thou grossed so long as men can breathe or eyes can see so long lives this and this gives life to thee so that's the whole thing let's go back and talk a little bit of theme and then get back into the words of the poem so this is what's called a fair youth sonnet now there's 154 sonnets shakespearean sonnets 154 of those total and a big group of them are addressed to someone called the fair youth who we think this is is kind of a young man kind of a guy about town you know he's just on the cusp of young adulthood that is kind of how i see the theme of the poem it is celebrating physical beauty but also youth and health and vitality that kind of feeling of invincibility this kind of golden years this golden stage of life okay so let's get back into it and go line by line here shall i compare thee to a summer's day so this is exactly what it sounds like is a summer's day a good way to describe you thou art more lovely and more temperate so the poet is answering his own question there shall i compare you to a summer's day no not really because you're better than that you're more beautiful and more temperate temperate means even keeled if a place has a temperate climate it means it's always nice it's never too cold it's never too warm it's never stormy nasty gloomy it's just always pretty nice rough winds do shake the darling buds of may darling buds of may those are like the spring and summer flowers so he's saying like when storms come along it can ruin uh nature's beauty it can you know knock all the flowers off of their stems and everything but that doesn't happen to you and summer's least have all too short a date lease is exactly like we use it today you know you lease a house or you lease a car you've reserved a time when you are uh in possession of that thing so it's saying summer's lease summer's time is way too short it has a definite beginning and it has a definite end um yeah all too short of date means it ends quickly it's over too fast sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines it's talking about the sun sometimes it's too hot and it's not a very pleasant day because it's scorching and you're sweating and often is his gold complexion dimmed that's talking about the sun again and it's saying some days are too hot and some days it's overcast and it's gloomy it's dreary outside and it's not very pretty so that is one of the ways that the object of the poem the subject of the poem is better than a summer's day because that person is always beautiful and always wonderful and summer days sometimes are not and every fair from fair sometimes declines so when it says and every fair that means like every beautiful thing every beautiful person from fair sometime declines at some point the beauty fades by chance or nature's changing course untrimmed uh chance means like accident or illness nature's changing course untrimmed means the natural passage of time so for a human being that would mean like the natural lifespan you have childhood you have youth young adulthood older adulthood and old age you naturally follow that path um or for summer you know you have the natural ending naturally summer comes to a close and it goes into autumn so we lose the beauty of summer to the cooler temperatures of autumn but thy eternal summer shall not fade so that means like eternal summer means like youth your youth and beauty shall not fade nor lose possession of that fair thou oast what that means is you won't lose what you have you're always going to be beautiful you'll always have that beauty and this line oast means own the speaker has kind of um forced the words to suit the structure of iambic pentameter which has ten syllables per line nor shall death brag thou wanderest in his shade you'll see he does it again and that one wanderest becomes wanderest to make it suit the correct number of syllables for iambic pentameter so what that line means is you're not going to die death is not going to possess your beauty when in eternal lines to time thou grossed uh that means that i'm going to write about you in this poem and you're going to be immortalized in the poem so your beauty will never die it will never be forgotten so long as men can breathe or eyes can see so long lives this speaking of the poem so long lives this and this gives life to thee so that means like as long as people can read as long as the written word endures you will be immortalized your beauty will be safe because i am going to preserve it right here in the words of this poem it will last forever all right that's about all i've got on sonnet 18. i hope some of that was helpful if it was uh please like and subscribe and hit the notification bell so that you can know when the next story or poem becomes available if you had a different story or poem in mind or a particular author that you're interested in drop that in the comments and i will see what i can do best of luck to you and i'll see you in the next chapter

Channel: Carrie Hoover

Views: 11,740

Keywords: sonnets, William Shakespeare, Shakespearean sonnet, poetry, homework help, virtual learning, learn from home, distance learning, iambic pentameter, English sonnet, sonnet 18, shall I compare thee to a summer's day

Id: rv9yW05svUo

Length: 6min 58sec (418 seconds)

Published: Sun Jan 31 2021