The "poem" "Shall I Compare Thee..." is an Elizabethan
sonnet, as were all of Shakespeare's sonnets. (This form is also known as the
"Shakespearean" sonnet.)
The rhyme scheme is abab cdcd efef
gg. (The rhyme between the first and third lines is called a "near
rhyme.")
Shakespeare uses the structure (3 quatrains and a
rhyming couplet) to organize the poem. Often the first two quatrains present the basic
premise of the poem, in this case, how the subject of his poem is as beautiful as a
summer day—even with the idea in mind that those summer days can often times be
diminished by winds or the change of the
season.
Structurally, the "shift" of the poem's focus comes
at the start of the third quatrain, easily spotted by the word "but." (You can see the
same word used as the sonnet's turning point in Sonnet #29.) In this quatrain, the bard
says that while a summer day will fade, her beauty (the woman he is speaking to) will
never diminish.
The rhyming couplet
serves as the conclusion to the sonnet, where the author sums up the major focus of his
previous twelve lines: that as long as men breathe and their eyes still are able to see
the poem, her beauty will live on—in essence, forever.
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