Sonnet 18

Shakespeare's Sonnet 18 has an overall theme of love and mortality. The speaker compares his lover's beauty to summer. He says that "summer's lease hath all too short a date," meaning that summer goes by too fast and that it is a temporary state. The idea of summer is not perfect either though. Sometimes summer is too hot and then it fades suddenly. In the final quatrain, the speaker says that his lover's beauty and spirit will not fade like summer even though nature inevitably changes and diminishes beauty. As long as his lover is living, she shall keep the gifts of nature.

Personification is a prominent literary device used in this poem. Words pertaining to weather or the change in seasons like "rough winds" or "darling buds of May" are used to describe the speaker's lover. The first three stanzas build the theme of beauty being present, then fading, but being eternal for his love. The first stanza uses happier words to create a beautiful image in the mind of the reader. The second stanza uses words like "dimmed" and "declines" to show how nature can change. the third stanza makes promises to his lover that she will not decline like nature does at the end of summer. The couplet gives a definitive statement that his love will always be beautiful since the poem makes it eternal.

Like many sonnets of this time period, Shakespeare's Sonnet 18 also has a theme of love. However, that is not the only major theme present. The idea of mortality and the passing of time creates a melancholy tone for this love poem. Even though Death is mentioned in the poem, Death is not the fate of the subject. The idea of mortality is overcome since the poem preserves the moment.