Poetry Response #4 "Shall I Compare Thee to a Summers Day?"

“Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer’s Day?”

                  Shakespeare expresses one of those warm, breathtaking days captivating the months of June and July and compares it to a beautiful woman. Each quatrain he depicts a new picture of what this woman looks like and paints an image of a gorgeous day. This Shakespearean sonnet follows the four quatrains with an abab, cdcd, efef, gg rhyme scheme.

                  This format enriches the development of the poem. The quatrains split up allow Shakespeare to flow from one picture to the next. For example, the first quatrain gives these woman characteristics of being lovely and temperate.  The next characterizes her with a fair complexion followed by an exaggerated expression of how beauty, at some point, will always fade except for the beauty that the girl attains. His writing is influenced by the structure because it allows him to describe sufficiently and deeply as the poem continues. He splits up in this way so that each quatrain acquires its owning meaning, and then he ties it all together again with the couplet at the very end.