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 6 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

Answer: a) The speaker declares that his beloved’s loveliness will live on forever through his poetry, unlike the short-lived summer season.

Explanation:

Everything will eventually die with time. Even the sun is not spared death with time. That is the function of time, to eventually kill everything and leave it in Death's shade.

This is what William Shakespeare speaks of in this poem. He infers that summer will fade with time and so will her beauty but that he has found a way to circumvent time by writing of her beauty in a poem. And for as long as people can read, her beauty will never be killed by time for it will last forever.