WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE SONNETS

William Shakespeare Sonnet

“Not Marble”

The poet starts the praise of his costly ally without ostentation, but he gradually builds the image of his friend into that of a perfect being. His friend is first compared to summer in the octave, but, at the start of the third quatrain (9), he is summer, and therefore, he has metamorphosed into the standard by which factual attractiveness can and should be judged.

The poet's only response to such profound delight and beauty is to double-check that his friend be eternally in human memory, saved from the nothingness that escorts death. He accomplishes this ...