On The Beauty of Sonnet 18
It’s obvious that sonnet 18 is so great a success that it has been spread from mouth to mouth since it was published.This poem embodies exquisite skill of Shakespear’s poetry.We can feel diversified beauty in this outstanding masterpiece，especially the beauty of rhyme scheme，images，figures of speech and theme.
Firstly，sonnet 18 of Shakespeare is different from traditional sonnet such as Italian sonnet in rhyme scheme.It consists of three quatrains and a couplet，rhymed abab cdcd efef gg.This iambic pentameter contains tuneful and vivid rhyme and proper cadence,such as the first sentence“Shall I/compare/thee to/a sum/mer’s day?”The forepart of each foot is falling and the latter is rising contrarily.Reading this rhythmical poem,we might have illusion that we were listening to music from the valley with light-hearted and cheerful mood.
Apart from the rhyme scheme,the images in this sonnet are impressive and attractive as well.Having read this sonnet,we can easily get ourselves across that it is an imaginative poem based on the image“summer”.Seeing this word,we soon come up with blooming flowers and exuberant trees in our mind.However,the summer refered in this poem is not the scorching summer as we thought for granted.Actually,it indicates his friend’s cute and hints that his friend
is so young and full of beans.Because summer is filled with vigour.All the life revives in spring and at its peak in summer.In the beginning,Shakespear compares his friend to summer,but his friend is superior in youth and beauty.“Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?Thou art more lovely and more temperate.”Then,Shakespear says “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.”Although some things in summer is wonderful,they still can’t stop time and nature grabbing their beauty.Then the seventh and eighth sentences say “And every fair from fair sometime declines，By chance or nature's changing course untrimmed.”The first “fair”means “beautiful person”, but the next “fair”means “beauty”.Anything that’s beautiful won’t last forever because of accident and necessity. In this sonnet,Shakespear compares the beauty and transient of summer to the elapsing of a person’s beauty and youth.Obviously,Shakespear loves his friend so much.
In this short poem,Shakespear performs the figures of speech elasticly and perfectly,which adds much fascination to the theme of this poem.All these figures of speech reflect the beauty of language.The first line“Shall I compare thee to a s‘summer’s day?”makes use of simile and rhetorical question.The similarity of
