SONNET XVIII

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 dimmed,
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance, or nature's changing course untrimmed:
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.

This is one of the most famous of all the sonnets, justifiably so. But it would be a
mistake to take it entirely in isolation, for it links in with so many of the other
sonnets through the themes of the descriptive power of verse; the ability of the
poet to depict the fair youth adequately, or not; and the immortality conveyed
through being hymned in these 'eternal lines'. It is noticeable that here the poet is
full of confidence that his verse will live as long as there are people drawing
breath upon the earth, whereas later he apologises for his poor wit and his
humble lines which are inadequate to encompass all the youth's excellence. Now,
perhaps in the early days of his love, there is no such self-doubt and the eternal
summer of the youth is preserved forever in the poet's lines. The poem also works
at a rather curious level of achieving its objective through dispraise. The summer's
day is found to be lacking in so many respects (too short, too hot, too rough,
sometimes too dingy), but curiously enough one is left with the abiding
impression that 'the lovely boy' is in fact like a summer's day at its best, fair,
warm, sunny, temperate, one of the darling buds of May, and that all his beauty
has been wonderfully highlighted by the comparison.

COMMENTARY

1. Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?

This is taken usually to mean 'What if I were to compare thee etc?' The
stock comparisons of the loved one to all the beauteous things in nature
hover in the background throughout. One also remembers Wordsworth's
lines:
We'll talk of sunshine and of song,
And summer days when we were young,
Sweet childish days which were as long
As twenty days are now.
Such reminiscences are indeed anachronistic, but with the recurrence of
words such as 'summer', 'days', 'song', 'sweet', it is not difficult to see the
permeating influence of the Sonnets on Wordsworth's verse.

2. Thou art more lovely and more temperate:

The youth's beauty is more perfect than the beauty of a summer day. more
temperate - more gentle, more restrained, whereas the summer's day
might have violent excesses in store, such as are about to be described.

3. Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,

May was a summer month in Shakespeare's time, because the calendar in

use lagged behind the true sidereal calendar by at least a fortnight.
darling buds of May - the beautiful, much loved buds of the early summer;
favourite flowers.

4. And summer's lease hath all too short a date:

Legal terminology. The summer holds a lease on part of the year, but the
lease is too short, and has an early termination (date).
5. Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,

Sometime = on occasion, sometimes;

the eye of heaven = the sun.

6. And often is his gold complexion dimmed,

his gold complexion = his (the sun's) golden face. It would be dimmed by
clouds and on overcast days generally.

7. And every fair from fair sometime declines,

All beautiful things (every fair) occasionally become inferior in comparison

with their essential previous state of beauty (from fair). They all decline
from perfection.

8. By chance, or nature's changing course untrimmed:

By chance accidents, or by the fluctuating tides of nature, which are not

subject to control, nature's changing course untrimmed.
untrimmed - this can refer to the ballast (trimming) on a ship which keeps it
stable; or to a lack of ornament and decoration. The greater difficulty
however is to decide which noun this adjectival participle should modify.
Does it refer to nature, or chance, or every fair in the line above, or to the
effect of nature's changing course? KDJ adds a comma after course, which
probably has the effect of directing the word towards all possible
antecedents. She points out that nature's changing course could refer to
women's monthly courses, or menstruation, in which case every fair in the
previous line would refer to every fair woman, with the implication that the
youth is free of this cyclical curse, and is therefore more perfect.

9. But thy eternal summer shall not fade,

Referring forwards to the eternity promised by the ever living poet in the
next few lines, through his verse.

10. Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st,

 Nor shall it (your eternal summer) lose its hold on that beauty which you so
richly possess. ow'st = ownest, possess.
By metonymy we understand 'nor shall you lose any of your beauty'.

11. Nor shall death brag thou wander'st in his shade,

Several half echoes here. The biblical ones are probably 'Oh death where is
thy sting? Or grave thy victory?' implying that death normally boasts of his
conquests over life. And Psalms 23.3.: 'Yea though I walk through the valley
of the shadow of death I will fear no evil ' In classical literature the shades
flitted helplessly in the underworld like gibbering ghosts. Shakespeare
would have been familiar with this through Virgil's account of Aeneas'
descent into the underworld in Aeneid Bk. VI.

12. When in eternal lines to time thou grow'st,

in eternal lines = in the undying lines of my verse. Perhaps with a reference

to progeny, and lines of descent, but it seems that the procreation theme
has already been abandoned.
to time thou grow'st - you keep pace with time, you grow as time grows.

13. So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,

For as long as humans live and breathe upon the earth, for as long as there
are seeing eyes on the eart.

14. So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

That is how long these verses will live, celebrating you, and continually
renewing your life. But one is left with a slight residual feeling that perhaps
the youth's beauty will last no longer than a summer's day, despite the
poet's proud boast.
 SONNET 55

Not marble, nor the gilded monuments

Of princes, shall outlive this powerful rhyme;
But you shall shine more bright in these contents
Than unswept stone, besmear'd with sluttish time.
When wasteful war shall statues overturn,
And broils root out the work of masonry,
Nor Mars his sword, nor war's quick fire shall burn
The living record of your memory.
'Gainst death, and all oblivious enmity
Shall you pace forth; your praise shall still find room
Even in the eyes of all posterity
That wear this world out to the ending doom.
So, till the judgment that yourself arise,
You live in this, and dwell in lovers' eyes.

A famous sonnet which rings changes on the theme celebrated by Horace -

Exegi monumentum aere perennius
(I have built a monument more lasting than bronze...)
but here given a new meaning in that it is the loved one who is immortalised,
rather than the poet. The poet is himself only the instrument to accomplish this
end and he humbly celebrates the glory of the youth.

Yet on a secondary level we do not read the poem in that way at all, for we are
well aware that the words survive far longer than any memory of the youth,
whose face and name we do not even know. The striking images of crumbling
stone and violent war etch themselves into our minds and in the midst of this
waste and decay we realise that if anything will survive it will be the poet's words,
and both he and the loved one will be swept away into oblivion. Immortality of
sorts is thus achieved for the poem, but for nothing else unless it be for the love
which dwells in lovers eyes.

The sonnet shares its theme with that of several others, 18, 19, 65, 81, 107, 123,
which oppose the power of verse to death and Time's cruel knife, and promise
immortality to the beloved. Curiously enough, it does not seem to make any
difference that the verse immortalises the youth without revealing him, for the
very fact of immortality seems to confer anonymity. The concluding couplet
seems to be entirely satisfying, and we do not need to press furhter enquiries on
the poet and demand to know who it is to whom eternal life is given. It is enough
that he lives in lovers' eyes, for they comprehend all mysteries, and perhaps, on
the last day, at the ending doom, we will know all the answers anyway, and
realise that they were not all that important.

COMMENTARY

1. Not marble, nor the gilded monuments

Marble was widely used in statuary and in monuments for tombs of the
powerful and wealthy. The more extravagant ones were large enough to
house the coffins of generations of the same family. Royal tombs would be
richly ornate, as those for example in Westminster Abbey. (See illustration
below left, and at bottom of page).
gilded monuments - Memorials in churches would often be decorated with
gold leaf.

2. Of princes, shall outlive this powerful rhyme;

princes - a word which was used to refer to all royalty and rulers, male and
female.
powerful - in the sense of being able to withstand time's destruction, and
perhaps to confer immortality.

3. But you shall shine more bright in these contents

 But = in contrast to the things listed, you etc.
in these contents - in the content of this verse. SB points out that it could
have a suggestion of 'in this coffin' as though the verse were a physical
container, a capacious monument.

4. Than unswept stone, besmear'd with sluttish time.

unswept stone - a stone monument left uncared for. Those in cathedrals

and churches would generally be kept clean and polished. But older
monuments in churchyards gradually would be forgotten and fall to ruin, as
the living memory of its builders and inhabitants died out.
sluttish = of unclean habits and behaviour; lewd and whorish. The adjective
was applied to both males and females. It is descriptive of time's
indifference to keeping the world orderly.

5. When wasteful war shall statues overturn,

wasteful war - war devastates city and country, hence the term to lay
waste, from the Latin vastare.

6. And broils root out the work of masonry,

broils = tumult, fighting, disturbances, esp. in war. As in :

Prosper this realm, keepe it from civil broils. 1H6.I.1.53.
The destruction caused by war, even in the days before high explosives,
was often made evident when conquered towns were razed to the ground
by the soldiery. All buildings (masonry) would be flattened. In the bible
total destruction is foretold to Jerusalem by Christ:
For the days shall come upon thee, that thine enemies shall
cast a trench about thee, and compass thee round, and keep
thee in on every side, And shall lay thee even with the ground,
and thy children within thee; and they shall not leave in thee one stone
upon another;
because thou knewest not the time of thy visitation. Luke.19.43-4.
7. Nor Mars his sword, nor war's quick fire shall burn

Neither the sword of Mars (the God of war), nor the searching fire of
war. quick = lively, fast moving, searching out.

8. The living record of your memory.

living record = the memory of you among those currently alive; the memory
of you which continues after you are dead; the written record of your life.

9. 'Gainst death, and all oblivious enmity

'Gainst = against.
all oblivious enmity - enmity which seeks to destroy everything, or is
forgetful of everything; time, the enemy. SB gives seven possible meanings
of this phrase: entirely unmindful; every (all of the) unmindful; that is
forgetful of all things; that causes forgetfulness; that causes
forgetfulness of everything; that causes forgetfulness in everyone; that
brings everything to oblivion, causes everything to be forgotten.

10. Shall you pace forth; your praise shall still find room

Shall you pace forth = you shall stride forwards. The image is perhaps that
of leading a procession, or of striding on to a stage.
your praise = praise of you, praise which is due to you.
still = constantly; for ever, despite all.
find room = be given time and space (whereas most things disappear or are
lost with the passage of time).

11. Even in the eyes of all posterity

Even in the eyes of = in the very presence or sight of, in the opinion of.
all posterity = all future generations.

12. That wear this world out to the ending doom.

 That - the antecedent is presumably all posterity, being the closest noun,
whereas death and all-oblivious enmity of l.9 are rather remote. It depends
partly on how one wishes to interpret the phrase wear this world out. The
most obvious meaning is 'to destroy gradually by attrition', a meaning
which does not sit entirely happily with posterity, but is more suggestive of
time, or death, or war. On the other hand posterity could be taken to
embrace the idea of the tedious progress of the generations bringing the
world to the brink of exhaustion, recalling for example Macbeth's
despairing cry when confronted with Banquo's descendants:

What, will the line stretch out to the crack of doom! Mac.IV.1.117.

the ending doom = the last judgement. When the world comes to an end,
according to Christian mythology, the fate (doom) of all humans who have
ever lived is finally decided. Those who are to be saved sit on the right hand
of God the Father. Those who are damned go to the left and are
condemned to everlasting flames, the bottomless pit which was prepared
for the devil and his angels.

13. So, till the judgment that yourself arise,

On the final day, the day of the last judgement, (see above), even those
who died some time ago will arise from the dead and be judged. After that
date there is no point in celebrating anyone in poetry.

14. You live in this, and dwell in lovers' eyes.

in this - in this verse.

live, dwell - the repetition of words connected with 'to live' (outlive, living,
oblivious, arise, dwell) counteracts the effect of death, war and
destruction.
in lover's eyes - a reminder that this is also a love poem, and a reminder of
the power of love to transcend mortality. Perhaps a reference also to
'seeing babies' in the loved one's eyes. See Sonnet 24.
Choka
The most intricate Japanese Poetry form is the Choka, or Long Poem.
The early form consisted of a series of Katuata joined together. This gives a choice
of form structures of
5/7/5/5/7/7… etc. or 5/7/7/5/7…etc
The Choka could be any total line length and indeed many exceeded 100 lines.
Looking at this, it is easy to see why Poetic Historians believe the Katuata is the
original basic unit of Japanese poetry using either the 17 or 19 unit onji.
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Another interpretation –
Choka

Type: Structure, Metrical Requirement, Simple

Description: The choka is a Japanese form of unrhymed alternating five and seven syllabl
that ends with an extra seven syllable line. It can be any odd number of lines

Origin: Japanese

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The choka (長歌 long poem) was the epic, story telling form of Japanese poetry

from the 1st to the 13th century, known as the Waka period. Storytelling was rare
in the Japanese language during the Waka period although it is found in
the Man’yôshû and even the Kokinshú. Most often the Japanese poet would write
epics in classical Chinese. Still, the occasional poet with a story to tell would tackle
the choka, the earliest of which can be traced back to the 1st century. It describes
a battle and is 149 lines long.
Originally chokas were sung, but not in the Western sense of being sung. The oral
tradition of the choka was to recite the words in a high pitch.
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choka/>
I always check this site for confirmation when cross-checking forms Judi Van
Gorder has done a remarkable job for PMO.
Choka

Type: Structure, Metrical Requirement, Simple

Description: The choka is a Japanese form of unrhymed alternating five and seven syllabl
that ends with an extra seven syllable line. It can be any odd number of lines

Origin: Japanese

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Definition
The most intricate Japanese Poetry form is the Choka, or Long Poem.
The early form consisted of a series of Katuata joined together. This gives a choice
of form structures of ….. 5 – 7 – 7 – 5 – 7 – 7.. etc, or .. 5 – 7 – 5 – 5 – 7 – 5.. etc.
Example
The Moth
there is no freedom
escaping from my cocoon
I must seek you once again
I am drawn to you
like a moth to a candle
circling nearer and nearer
the deadly flame calls
now my wings are scorched
why must my nature be so?
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Specifications, Restated:
Origin: : Japanese
The form is syllabic : 5/7/7/5/7/7 or 5/7/5/5/7/5
Traditional style : Stanzas consisting of any number of the above structures
(called Katuata)
or alternaively : Alternating five and seven syllable lines that end with an
extra 7 syllable line.
Unrhymed.
Meant for longer poems.
I have written a one using the Katuata style.
Poem Sample
Above the Sun (choka) Katuata Version
setting out with you
in late summer’s rising sun
hastens Honchu’s heat
yet our packs hold coats
which hold nourishment for us
for cold nights ahead.
many foreigners
pass and are passed as we climb
the holy mountain;
all are of like mind-
to climb to Mount Fuji’s peak
for spiritual joy.
We begin our last
ascent early in the night-
cold now, velvet sky
lightens, bows to rising sun.
We watch from above, awed.

© Lawrencealot – November 23,2013

Visual Templates.
(with Thanks to Judi, I used her poem to depict the alternating line version)
Tanka Poem

The tanka is a thirty-one-syllable poem, traditionally written in a single unbroken

line. A form of waka, Japanese song or verse, tanka translates as "short song,"
and is better known in its five-line, 5/7/5/7/7 syllable count form.

History of the Tanka Form

One of the oldest Japanese forms, tanka originated in the seventh century, and
quickly became the preferred verse form not only in the Japanese Imperial Court,
where nobles competed in tanka contests, but for women and men engaged in
courtship. Tanka’s economy and suitability for emotional expression made it ideal
for intimate communication; lovers would often, after an evening spent together
(often clandestinely), dash off a tanka to give to the other the next morning as a
gift of gratitude.

In many ways, the tanka resembles the sonnet, certainly in terms of treatment of
subject. Like the sonnet, the tanka employs a turn, known as a pivotal image,
which marks the transition from the examination of an image to the examination
of the personal response. This turn is located within the third line, connecting
the kami-no-ku, or upper poem, with the shimo-no-ku, or lower poem.

Many of the great tanka poets were women, among them Lady Akazone Emon,
Yosano Akiko, and Lady Murasaki Shikibu, who wrote The Tale of Genji, a
foundational Japanese prose text that includes over 400 tanka. English-language
writers have not taken to the tanka form in the same way they have the haiku,
but there are several notable exceptions, including Amy Lowell, Kenneth
Rexroth, Sam Hamill, Cid Corman, and Carolyn Kizer.
Renga Poem Structures

A renga is a form written by multiple collaborating poets. To create a renga, one

poet writes the first stanza, which is three lines long with a total of seventeen
syllables. The next poet adds the second stanza, a couplet with seven syllables per
line. The third stanza repeats the structure of the first and the fourth repeats the
second, alternating in this pattern until the poem’s end.

More about the Renga

Renga, meaning "linked poem," began over seven hundred years ago in Japan to
encourage the collaborative composition of poems. Poets worked in pairs or small
groups, taking turns composing the alternating three-line and two-line stanzas.
Linked together, renga were often hundreds of lines long, though the favored
length was a 36-line form called a kasen. Several centuries after its inception, the
opening stanza of renga gave rise to the much shorter haiku.

Thematic elements of renga are perhaps most crucial to the poem’s success. The
language is often pastoral, incorporating words and images associated with
seasons, nature, and love. In order for the poem to achieve its trajectory, each
poet writes a new stanza that leaps from only the stanza preceding it. This leap
advances both the thematic movement as well as maintaining the linking
component.

Contemporary practitioners of renga have eased the form’s traditional structural

standards, allowing poets to adjust line-length, while still offering exciting and
enlightening possibilities. The form has become a popular method for teaching
students to write poetry while working together.
Haiku (or hokku)
A Japanese verse form most often composed, in English versions, of three
unrhymed lines of five, seven, and five syllables. A haiku often features an
image, or a pair of images, meant to depict the essence of a specific
moment in time.

Not popularized in Western literature until the early 1900s, the form
originates from the Japanese hokku, or the opening section of a
longer renga sequence. In this context, the hokku served to begin a longer
poem by establishing a season, often with a pair of seasonal images. Unlike
the rest of the renga sequence, which was composed collaboratively,
the hokku was often created by a single poet working alone, and was
subsequently used as an exercise for students. Over time, the hokku began
to be appreciated for its own worth and became distinct as a poetic form,
formally mastered by poets such as Basho and Yosa Buson.
In 1905, Paul-Louis Couchoud became one of the first European translators
of the form, converting many short Japanese verses into his native French.
This began the popularization of haiku in Europe, where the form was
translated by French and Spanish poets, such as José Juan Tablada.
Throughout the two World Wars and the rise of Modernism, haikus were
gradually adapted and celebrated by Imagist poets, such as Ezra
Pound, H.D., and T.E. Hulme. In this context, the haiku was appreciated for
its linguistic and sensory economy. Most notably Pound’s “In a Station of
the Metro,” though not intended as a haiku, adapts the sparse, visual style
of the Japanese form.
Despite its formal history, the haiku’s composition has expanded somewhat
over time. This is due in part to the differences between the Japanese
language and Western languages. In its original Japanese form, the haiku is
often divided into 17 mora (a Japanese unit of syllable weight) and
arranged in a single vertical line. However, in English there is no exact
equivalent to the mora unit. As a result, in English and other languages,
haikus are most frequently adapted into three lines of verse, usually
unrhymed, composed of five, seven, and five syllables, adding up to
seventeen syllables total. However, many American poets, such as Jack
Kerouac, began to gradually depart from this traditional syllable and line
count, in favor of depicting images as succinctly as possible.
Despite its many adaptions into multiple languages and styles, the haiku
remains a powerful form due to its economic use of language to evoke a
specific mood or instance. Most often occurring in the present tense, a
haiku frequently depicts a moment by using pair of distinct images working
in tandem, as in these lines by Kobayashi Issa, translated by Jane Hirshfield:

On a branch
floating downriver
a cricket, singing.

(Notice how, in translating from Japanese to English, Hirshfield compresses

the number of syllables.)
The haiku continues to be a popular form today, and its different qualities
have been emphasized and expanded by a wide variety of writers. Poets
such as Etheridge Knight emphasize the formal and sonic quality of the
verse, as seen in his piece “Haiku,” whereas poets such as Scott
Helmes have chosen to emphasize the haiku’s visual arrangement, as seen
in his piece, “haiku #62.”
For further examples, see also “Three Haiku, Two Tanka” by Philip
Appleman and Robert Hass’s “After the Gentle Poet Kobayashi Issa.” In
addition, see the Imagist poets of the early 20th century, most notably Ezra
Pound.