Angel Yam
AP Literature & Composition
SONNET
18 Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
Period 1
INTERPRETATION
This poem is of a womans beauty. The speaker is
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
telling a woman that she is beautiful and compares
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
her to a summers day. Throughout the sonnet, he
And summer's lease hath all too short a date:
recites that even if the beauty in everything else
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
ends as summer does, her beauty still stays. He
And often is his gold complexion dimmed,
addresses her beauty as thy eternal summer shall
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
not fade even if she grows old or dies. The speaker
By chance, or nature's changing course untrimmed:
promises the woman that as long as she exists in this
But thy eternal summer shall not fade,
poem and as long as people are around, then her
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st,
beauty will be remembered for as long as they are
Nor shall death brag thou wand'rest in his shade,
around.
When in eternal lines to time thou grow'st,
So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.
29 When in disgrace with Fortune and men's eyes,
The poem is about the speakers love for a woman.
I all alone beweep my outcast state,
He opens up by saying he dreads his life. The
And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries,
speaker is an insecure and troubled individual. For a
And look upon my self and curse my fate,
majority of the poem, he mentions how common
Wishing me like to one more rich in hope,
and lonely he is: he cries alone, he has no luck, he
Featured like him, like him with friends possessed,
has no friends, he feels jealous towards another.
Desiring this man's art, and that man's scope,
However, his tone changes to one of hope and
With what I most enjoy contented least,
endearment when he mentions Haply I think on
Yet in these thoughts my self almost despising,
thee The speakers love to this woman allows
Haply I think on thee, and then my state,
him to live with the discomforts of his life, rather
(Like to the lark at break of day arising
than trading places with a king.
From sullen earth) sings hymns at heaven's gate,
For thy sweet love remembered such wealth brings,
That then I scorn to change my state with kings.
Angel Yam
AP Literature & Composition
30 When to the sessions of sweet silent thought,
Period 1
This poem is one about grievances over time. The
I summon up remembrance of things past,
speaker tells the reader that when he sits and thinks
I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought,
of the past, he comes to understand that the best
And with old woes new wail my dear time's waste:
things in life have past and gone to waste. Anything
Then can I drown an eye (unused to flow)
that he may have hoped for once is now to late. He
For precious friends hid in death's dateless night,
mentions that his eyes, unused to flow, are wet,
And weep afresh love's long since cancelled woe,
meaning he cries at his losses: dead friends and
And moan th' expense of many a vanished sight.
things he has lost. Every time he grieves, he states
Then can I grieve at grievances foregone,
he just feels sad over the same things over again.
And heavily from woe to woe tell o'er
The speaker then mentions his dear friend, who
The sad account of fore-bemoaned moan,
compensates for all his losses and who reminds him
Which I new pay as if not paid before.
that sadness fades.
But if the while I think on thee (dear friend)
All losses are restored, and sorrows end.
73 That time of year thou mayst in me behold,
The poem is about aging and death. The speaker
When yellow leaves, or none, or few do hang
tells a person of his increasing age. He compares
Upon those boughs which shake against the cold,
himself in a series of three metaphors. First, he
Bare ruined choirs, where late the sweet birds sang.
compares himself to autumn, in which he mentions
In me thou seest the twilight of such day,
the yellow leaves. Second, he mentions the
As after sunset fadeth in the west,
twilight of the day that would eventually fade to
Which by and by black night doth take away,
black and into the night with Death. Third, he
Death's second self that seals up all in rest.
directly compares himself as a fire that is
In me thou seest the glowing of such fire,
extinguished: As the death bed, whereon it must
That on the ashes of his youth doth lie,
expire. The speaker is possibly speaking to his
As the death-bed, whereon it must expire,
lover. At the end, he mentions that it is because of
Consumed with that which it was nourished by.
these reasons he knows thou must leave ere long.
This thou perceiv'st, which makes thy love more strong, He means to say that his lover knows that they will
To love that well, which thou must leave ere long.
not live forever and will try to love before they die.
