Question

Which of the following best describes the function of “Time” in the following poem, Sonnet 18 by William Shakespeare? 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. Question 11 options: a) The speaker declares that his beloved’s loveliness will live on forever through his poetry, unlike the short-lived summer season. b) The speaker laments the fleeting nature of summer, as it is his favorite season and he wishes its warmth and brightness could last longer. c) The speaker admits that although his beloved’s beauty will fade with time, his love will not fade. d) The speaker explains that he loves his beloved more than he adores the summer because his beloved can love him back.

Answer 1

In Sonnet 18 by William Shakespeare, Time serves to illustrate the temporary nature of beauty, contrasting it with the everlasting nature of the beloved's beauty as immortalized in the speaker's poetry.

Step-by-step explanation:

In William Shakespeare's Sonnet 18, the function of “Time” is best described as conveying the impermanence of physical beauty compared to the enduring nature of the beloved's loveliness as immortalized through poetry. Option (a) “The speaker declares that his beloved’s loveliness will live on forever through his poetry, unlike the short-lived summer season” is the one that most accurately captures this sentiment. In particular, the poem contrasts the temporary and fluctuating nature of a summer's day with the perpetual beauty of the speaker's beloved, which is eternalized in verse. Shakespeare creates a dichotomy between the transient aspects of nature and the lasting impact of literary expression.

Thus, through poetic form, the speaker ensures that while physical beauty is subject to the whims of time and nature, the beauty of the beloved will endure “so long as men can breathe or eyes can see.” This theme of the enduring power of art to capture and preserve beauty is a common one in literature and is vividly portrayed in this sonnet. The poet asserts that as long as the poem is read, the beloved's beauty and memory will persist, transcending the limits of Time.