With Sonnet 18, William Shakespeare steps out of a small poetic zone accommodating the first 17 poems of his Sonnet Sequence, wherein the Poet/Speaker (Shakespeare/Persona) urged a “fair youth” to procreate and not let his “unused beauty” be “tombed” (4) with him. That the young man mentioned is exceedingly handsome is obvious from the copious use of words like “beauty”, “lovely”, “sweet”, “fair”. But, in spite of coming close to describing him in these Sonnets, the Poet stopped just short of completing the task. It is in Sonnet 18 that he provides a somewhat hazy description of the handsome man, though only through a series of interesting comparisons.

Thematically speaking, Sonnet 18 rests on a tripod. Herein, through three quatrains and a couplet, the

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Citation: Kar Barua, Sudeshna. "Sonnet 18". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 04 February 2025 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=41862, accessed 21 February 2025.]