shall i compare thee to a summer's day?

shakespeare's sonnet 18, immortalizing beauty, and the wonder of literature: an introduction to my newsletter

Ever since I was young, I have loved literature and art. I was always a sentimental child—I remember writing in my diary about how I was going to ‘miss these days’, which I later realized was nostalgia. I didn’t know it was that word at that time because I was six when writing it, but I think I was always hyperaware of each passing moment. I wanted every memory to be preserved, immortalized, because I wanted to miss it the same amount I lived it.

When I later started reading classics, one of the things I loved the most was how every book felt like a representation of this feeling. Through centuries of history, people had wanted to preserve feelings and their love for something into words. And I was reading this, hundreds of years later—what the author had deemed important and sentimental enough to immortalize in a common language. Of course, the same will apply for contemporary books in the future.

One of the pieces of literature that changed my life, and thus is the name of my Substack newsletter, is Shakespeare’s Sonnet 18. I believe that out of all his works, his sonnets are the ones that truly reveal his genius. Through them, he explores themes such as love, lust, sexuality, and mortality. Each sonnet is an ode to something, and Sonnet 18 is an ode to solidifying one’s love by immortalizing their beauty. It was one of the “Fair Youth” sonnets, which cover Sonnets 1-126. While the subject of who the Fair Youth actually was, is often in contention, these poems radiate admiration and love. Particularly, in Sonnet 18, Shakespeare uses the art of poetry to defy eternal time, preserving beauty in his words.

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 dimm'd;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance or nature’s changing course untrimm'd;
But thy eternal summer shall not fade,
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st;
Nor shall death brag thou wander’st in his shade,
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.

a short, classic literary analysis:

Shakespeare begins Sonnet 18 by using nature to describe the young man's beauty. The speaker begins by comparing his lover to a "summer's day," claiming that the young man is "more lovely and more temperate" (Sonnet 18.1-2) than the most beautiful of weathers. In this sonnet, the decline of nature serves a different purpose: it is a tool to describe the incomparable beauty of the young man, as no phenomenon will last forever opposed to the young man's "eternal summer" (Sonnet 18.12).

Despite May arguably being the optimal month in England, the speaker lists its flaws, stating that "sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines / And often is his gold complexion dimm'd" (Sonnet 18.5-6). In the speaker’s eyes, the sunlight of May can be either too strong or too dim. The Fair Youth, in comparison, is "more temperate", meaning that he is mild, placing him somewhere in the middle of these extremes. Furthermore, the weather of summer is "too short a date" (Sonnet 18.4), as it is confined to seasonal change. Thus, as summer is not linearly eternal, the speaker rejects this comparison; he then compares the young man to his own words, which he confident will last the test of time.

The sonnet is Shakespeare's acknowledgement of the power of poetry through the speaker, as he believes it will outlast nature itself which existed far before humans and languages. Regardless of how unrealistic this claim may seem, the speaker describes a love that transcends the confines of human life and its subsequent mortality. Through this sonnet, Shakespeare insinuates that romantic desire is spiritual and everlasting.

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When I first read this, I became obsessed with the idea of immortalization through words. How unbelievable and lovely was it, to be able to express eternal love and beauty through lacing a few words together in a sentence? I think that is why I started writing, especially about things I loved, like art and literature. I wanted to be able to immortalize this sort of love as well. Thus began my exploration into previous instances and manifestations of preserving beauty and objects and people of adoration.

Roses by Peder Severin Krøyer (1893)

I found out that there are countless of instances in which artists and writers used their artistic talent to express their love. In fact, it seems like the best works are often so. This is one of my favorite pieces. It’s called Roses by Peder Severin Krøyer, a Danish painter during the Impressionist era. This is only one of the paintings he did of his wife, Marie, who was also a painter. They married after falling madly in love.

The painting is a very casual moment. Marie is reading a book in the garden, on a sunny day. It seems typical, ordinary, mundane. But this moment is forever immortalized, which I think turns it into something special. Although their marriage later fell apart, due to Peder’s mental health and Marie’s consequent affair, Peder’s paintings of his wife are a preservation of the love he had at that time.

Feelings and memories are always ephemeral. My opinion of a book may change a month after I read it. I may fall out with a friend I am very close to right now, in the future. Everything in life, especially tiny moments, are transient and fleeting. I feel it slipping past me sometimes. I read a book and forget the intensity in which I loved it. I find a painting that speaks to me and want to write a thousand pages on it.

I wanted a place to archive these thoughts, these feelings. Every single post on here will be a love letter to something I love; something I want to immortalize. My own version of Shakespeare’s Sonnet 18.

Welcome to my Substack. I hope you like it here.