<P> 8 12 14 </P> <Tr> <Td> </Td> <Td>--William Shakespeare </Td> <Td> </Td> </Tr> <P> Sonnet 18, often alternatively titled Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?, is one of the best - known of 154 sonnets written by the English playwright and poet William Shakespeare . Part of the Fair Youth sequence (which comprises sonnets 1--126 in the accepted numbering stemming from the first edition in 1609), it is the first of the cycle after the opening sequence now described as the procreation sonnets . </P> <P> In the sonnet, the speaker asks whether or not he should compare his beloved to the summer season, and argues that he should not because the comparison does not properly express the depths of his emotion . He also states that his beloved will live on forever through the words of the poem . Scholars have found parallels within the poem to Ovid's Tristia and Amores, both of which have love themes . Sonnet 18 is written in the typical Shakespearean sonnet form, having 14 lines of iambic pentameter ending in a rhymed couplet . Detailed exegeses have revealed several double meanings within the poem, giving it a greater depth of interpretation . </P>

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