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 Shakespeare's Sonnet 18, 'Time' contrasts the fleeting nature of summer with the lasting beauty of the speaker's beloved, immortalized in poetry. The correct answer is a) where poetry enables the beloved’s beauty to endure forever.

Within William Shakespeare's Sonnet 18, the function of 'Time' serves as a motif to contrast the ephemeral nature of a summer's day with the enduring beauty of the speaker's beloved, as preserved through poetry. The correct answer is option a): The speaker declares that his beloved’s loveliness will live on forever through his poetry, unlike the short-lived summer season.

The sonnet expresses the idea that while natural beauty fades with time due to seasonal changes and the eventual onset of death, the beauty of the beloved will be immortalized in the eternal lines of the poem itself.

This is evident in lines such as “But thy eternal summer shall not fade,” and “When in eternal lines to time thou grow'st.”