Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer’s Day? - Substance


Q: Write the substance of the poem ‘Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer’s Day?’.

A:      Shakespeare in his ‘Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer’s Day?’ pays a tribute to the beauty of his young friend. At first, the poet is not sure how to describe his friend’s beauty adequately. According to the poet, it would be inapt to compare the beauty of his friend to a summer’s day because his beauty is more moderate and lovely. 

          Moreover the beauty of his friend is not without blemishes. The sweet buds of May are blown down by rough winds. The summer is short lived too. The sun sometimes shines too hot and sometimes it is overclouded. So the summer is subject to chances and changes and is deprived of adornment.

          Every beautiful thing or human being is subject to death, decay and destruction. The loss may occur about by an accident, nature’s neglect or with the passage of time. But the poet wants to immortalize his friend’s beauty. So he thinks of a literary immortality through his verse. Eternal lines of his verse would make eternal summer of the poet’s friend’s beauty denying Death and Time. The poet considers that the youth’s beauty, captured in the poem, will remain forever as long as the poem is read.   




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