ENG XH: In Class Notes 12/2 Sonnet Explications

"Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer's Day?"

Main Plot line

Explication/Line-by-Line

Line 2: temperate- gentle, not as extreme as summer day
Line 3: May considered summer
Line 4: Summer is too short
Line 5: Eye of heaven = sun
Line 6: And often is his gold complection dimmed = clouded sun
Line 7: Physical beauty declines eventually
Line 8: hardest sentence, untrimmed: nautical term, nature is not predictable and exactly structured: she is not structured
Line 9: change in idea, her "summer" will never fade
Line 10: she will never lose her fairness
Line 11: alluding to religious belief, saying that death will never brag about taking his lover's beauty
Line 12: His poem will keep her alive and always remember her memories and beauty, not only kept alive but also growing through his literature
Line 13 and 14: As long as men are living, this poem will always give her life

Question: If this was written about you by a man you care about would you find it complimentary?

Insulting: the only reason she would be remembered is because of his poetry, confidence in his poetry
Complimenting
Could go either way

"My Mistress' Eyes are Nothing like the Sun"

Main Plot

Comparisons

Vocab

Difference from Sonnet 18

mentions bad physical features, yet ends with how he still loves her
truth shown in couplet
Tone: how she is not perfect
Couplet: He thinks his love is special, because he doesn't need to compare her to false things (like a summer's day)- he can be honest about why he truley loves her

Question: Is this poem more genuine than "Shall I Compare thee to a Summer's Day?

Idea: First One: To her, Second one: about her, not said directly to her?
Parody: to other's work and maybe his own, of more typical sonnet
Others have many allusions and elaborate comparisons: his straight forward and to the point
Sarcastic tone
Meaning is genuine: human love, yet he is trying to make his own point: poets over-exadgerate

ENG XH