25 pages 50 minutes read

William Shakespeare

Sonnet 18

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1609

A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.

Further Reading

1.

“If no love is, O God, what fele I so?,” by Petrarch

This early 21-line poem, translated into Middle English by Geoffrey Chaucer, epitomizes the form the Italian Renaissance poet Petrarch invented. Though it is not 14 lines, it focuses on the theme of love. Though it is a contemplation of love, like Shakespeare’s later sonnet, it is solipsistic in nature, focusing on the speaker’s anguish from “this wondre maladie” (Line 20) which—contrary to Shakespeare’s love in “Sonnet 18”—is not a life-giving force, but one that makes the speaker wish for death.

2.

“Scorn not the Sonnet,” by William Wordsworth

 

Wordsworth’s address to critics who have scorned or diminished the value of the sonnet takes the reader through its formal history by alluding to those who have contributed the most memorable lines of verse—Petrarch and Shakespeare; Italian poet Torquato Tasso; Portugal’s greatest poet, Luïs de Camões (here “Camöens”); and English poets Edmund Spenser and John Milton. Like Shakespeare, Spenser and Milton elevated the form by experimenting with it. Dante Alighieri—of The Inferno notoriety—is mentioned to illustrate how his work in terza rima offered the formal basis from which the sonnet could form. The sonnet, in the speaker’s view, is not a form to be discarded; instead, he wishes that there were more of them.

Related Titles

By William Shakespeare

Study Guide
logo

All's Well That Ends Well

William Shakespeare

All's Well That Ends Well

William Shakespeare

STUDY + TEACHING GUIDE
logo

A Midsummer Night's Dream

William Shakespeare

A Midsummer Night's Dream

William Shakespeare

Study Guide
logo

Antony and Cleopatra

William Shakespeare

Antony and Cleopatra

William Shakespeare

STUDY + TEACHING GUIDE
logo

As You Like It

William Shakespeare

As You Like It

William Shakespeare

Study Guide
logo

Coriolanus

William Shakespeare

Coriolanus

William Shakespeare

Plot Summary
logo

Cymbeline

William Shakespeare

Cymbeline

William Shakespeare

Study Guide
logo

Hamlet

William Shakespeare

Hamlet

William Shakespeare

Study Guide
logo

Henry IV, Part 1

William Shakespeare

Henry IV, Part 1

William Shakespeare

Plot Summary
logo

Henry IV, Part 2

William Shakespeare

Henry IV, Part 2

William Shakespeare

Study Guide
logo

Henry V

William Shakespeare

Henry V

William Shakespeare

Plot Summary
logo

Henry VIII

William Shakespeare

Henry VIII

William Shakespeare

Plot Summary
logo

Henry VI, Part 1

William Shakespeare

Henry VI, Part 1

William Shakespeare

Plot Summary
logo

Henry VI, Part 3

William Shakespeare

Henry VI, Part 3

William Shakespeare

STUDY + TEACHING GUIDE
logo

Julius Caesar

William Shakespeare

Julius Caesar

William Shakespeare

Plot Summary
logo

King John

William Shakespeare

King John

William Shakespeare

STUDY + TEACHING GUIDE
logo

King Lear

William Shakespeare

King Lear

William Shakespeare

Study Guide
logo

Love's Labour's Lost

William Shakespeare

Love's Labour's Lost

William Shakespeare

STUDY + TEACHING GUIDE
logo

Macbeth

William Shakespeare

Macbeth

William Shakespeare

Study Guide
logo

Measure For Measure

William Shakespeare

Measure For Measure

William Shakespeare

STUDY + TEACHING GUIDE
logo

Much Ado About Nothing

William Shakespeare

Much Ado About Nothing

William Shakespeare