Shakespeare's eighteenth sonnet is, perhaps, one of the best-known sonnets contained in the English literary canon. It is a conventional Shakespearean sonnet that explores conventional themes in an original way. With characteristic skill Shakespeare uses the sonnet to exalt poetry and his beloved. The first quatrain introduces the primary conceit of the sonnet, the comparison of the speaker's beloved to a summer's day. In the first line the speaker introduces the comparison of his beloved …showed first 75 words of 549 total…

…showed last 75 words of 549 total…poetry and the memory of his beloved will last "so long as men can breathe or eyes can see" (13). This last comparison provides a stark contrast to the time period, "a summer's day," (1) introduced at the beginning and exalts poetry along with the beloved. Shakespeare used a conventional form of poetry to praise poetry and his beloved. He boasted that both would be preserved nearly eternally. Five hundred years later, no one refutes his boast.