25 pages • 50 minutes read
William ShakespeareA 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.
Shakespeare’s use of a season as an analogy prepares the reader for the sense that the speaker is experiencing something that will not last. In Line 4, this sense of ephemerality becomes clear: “And summer’s lease hath all too short a date,” meaning what is present and true now will not be so in a few months. In Lines 5-7, the speaker describes how the excitement derived from love and beauty often calms. What is “[s]ometime too hot” (Line 5) often becomes “dimm’d” (Line 6) and “sometime declines” (Line 7). The poet’s usage of the adverb “sometime” in Lines 5 and 7 describes how infatuations can be especially passionate, but people can also entirely lose interest in a beloved. On the other hand, what initially appears to be “gold” (Line 6)—a metaphor for early idealizations—“often” (Line 6) fades. With the use of the adverb “often,” there is an expression of greater certainty, as lovers seldom share as much interest in each other during the later stages of a romance as they did at the beginning.
By William Shakespeare
All's Well That Ends Well
All's Well That Ends Well
William Shakespeare
A Midsummer Night's Dream
A Midsummer Night's Dream
William Shakespeare
Antony and Cleopatra
Antony and Cleopatra
William Shakespeare
As You Like It
As You Like It
William Shakespeare
Coriolanus
Coriolanus
William Shakespeare
Cymbeline
Cymbeline
William Shakespeare
Hamlet
Hamlet
William Shakespeare
Henry IV, Part 1
Henry IV, Part 1
William Shakespeare
Henry IV, Part 2
Henry IV, Part 2
William Shakespeare
Henry V
Henry V
William Shakespeare
Henry VIII
Henry VIII
William Shakespeare
Henry VI, Part 1
Henry VI, Part 1
William Shakespeare
Henry VI, Part 3
Henry VI, Part 3
William Shakespeare
Julius Caesar
Julius Caesar
William Shakespeare
King John
King John
William Shakespeare
King Lear
King Lear
William Shakespeare
Love's Labour's Lost
Love's Labour's Lost
William Shakespeare
Macbeth
Macbeth
William Shakespeare
Measure For Measure
Measure For Measure
William Shakespeare
Much Ado About Nothing
Much Ado About Nothing
William Shakespeare