Theme of the Shakespeare sonnet 18

[linnie]

While analyzing this sonnet, which took me about an hour, I found several themes. And the next day, I found that everyone had different themes than me. For me, my themes were
1. This sonnet is dedicated to his (Shakespeare's) lover.
2. Loved one's beauty is immortal, unlike summer.
3. Shakespeare's love toward the woman referred in the sonnet is immortal.

Like this, I think you guys found many different themes or some might have similar themes from me. Finding these themes literally took me an hour! I think you guys had hard time as well. It is Shakespeare. He used weird old English that I don't understand and no one uses nowadays. I think this poem is difficult.

[james]

Well, i almost got the same idea or thesis that you wrote above. However, the second theme you wrote, i was thinking more like the summer as the immortality. Because the poem mentioned the 'eternal summer' i believed that it was more like using the eternal summer as a metaphor of the immortality. And even though the summer goes away as season passes, the summer will come back again. Just like what the author mentioned, the beuty declines, but it will be back just like the summer.
Omg i dont really know what i wrote above,..anyways the sonnet was pretty hard and yeah... Thats what i think

[JustinK.]

Wow, i haven't thought of the themes that you came up with and those are brilliant, but the themes that i found was that "If you love someone, then you are able to overlook many flaws and imperfection." Also in the sonnet, Shakespeare suggests that his lover's beauty is strong enough to break nature's cycle.

[ExtremelyExtremeExtremist]

I had similar themes you had above and before knowing what it meant, I thought that the poem was trying to tell that someone you love can help you. I got this idea because to me, it seemed like it was talking about hardships at line 3 and suddenly talks about ¡®eternal summer¡¯, making me think what made the narrator happy. I eventually got it from first two lines, which talked about lover. Actually, when we are unhappy, you and your lovers discuss about hardships, give advice, and try to make both cheerful (which is socializing).

Probably Shakespeare wrote this when his lover helped and pleased him other than talking about immortality.

[lukejoo1092]

I've thought about themes 1 & 2 but I never thought about theme 3. I never thought about that it might be the love he was referring to. Anyways, the theme I came up with was similar to theme 2 but a bit more detailed. I think the sonnet was trying to say that her beauty will be immortal as long as the poem exists. It's different from simply seeing that she is immortal. I'm thinking more of like how she can become immortal. So not only is he showing the value of her beauty but also the value of the poem itself. It's just adding a bit more to the previous themes basically. The main point though I thought was the same. But a universal theme for this would have been to show his love for his lover I suppose.

[jisu25]

The first time when i was reading sonnet 18, i thought that the main theme was about memory and love. I thought that those were the themes because in the beginning when it was talking about summer days and "thou art is more lovely and temperate", i thought it was talking about love. I thought that it was comparing with summer and love, so as a result it made me think that the theme was love. I thought about the theme "memory" right after reading the 2 lines before the couplet. When it said about an " eternal line", it seemed to me that it was talking about eternal lines of time.

[sazad100]

I had a similar but slightly different themes than you Lin.
1) The lovers beauty is constant unlike the change of weather.
2) The lover is more beautiful than a summer's day.
3) The verses of the poem will give life to the lovers as long as people exists.

[sergeyfen]

i had pretty much the same ideas, especially for 1 and 2. For third i thought that if you have fallen inlove, the feelings towards that person will never leave and always will stay, no matter what that person does. Also i think he tries to send a message that love exists as some people dont believe in it.

[gb1708]

I think i post too late about this sonnet but it ok. I only have same idea with theme 1 but not 2 and 3. My themes are about the beauty that break the nature rule and the beauty is as hot as summer.

[brandonina]

I agree with all of the themes that you've mentioned, Lin. Though I didn't exactly understand what the theme 3 is, I'm guessing that you meant how the whole purpose behind Shakespeare writing the Sonnets is to immortalize her beauty. Well, looking back at your post, that's not what you meant. Haha. I think theme 3 is kind of vague and not really the point of why he wrote the Sonnets. Shakespeare wrote the Sonnet in order to emphasize his lover's everlasting beauty and immortality(referring to the second quatrain). As I said, one thing I caught was that Shakespeare wrote about his lover in order to immortalize the person. Remember, when Ms.Boyd said how writing lasts forever. Shakespeare knew that and kept the beauty by writing the poem, which still exists now.

[esther]

i think the theme of sonnet 18 is the immortality of nature. he compared his lover's beauty to nature, but in a different way because he said that his lover's beauty is everlasting but nature is not.

[sorn]

He's trying to say that her beauty is immortal and will last forever unlike nature that is always changing due to the conditions of the environment. Her beauty will be able to be immortalize if as long as human can read, when they read this sonnet it will be pasted on and as people learn more and more about it. Her beauty will be immortalize.

[jungholee]

You said people got much different ideas of the theme, but your's is really similar to mine. Mainly i think he wanted to say how important and great about love, and his loving. The most of word chocie was fantastic to me when i understand the sonnets...

[nadiraamalina]

I think the themes are these:

1. Shakespeare really loves this girl
2. She's incredibly beautiful, especially in her youth, since he mentions summer and all, which is one of the literary symbols for people in the prime of their lives.
3. She's getting older and consequently less beautiful, but that doesn't matter to Shakespeare because a.) He really loves her, b.) He's gonna write this very sonnet describing her beauty, c.) Things that are set in paper are set in stone, so the world will never forget her beauty.

I think this is very, very, very sweet and I wonder why people don't write sonnets anymore.

[mirim002]

i kind of got the idea of what lin had...like about shakespeare having a lover and how much she loves him...