Do you agree that ‘Shall I compare thee’ is a typical Petrarchan Sonnet? Defend your answer.

Hello friends today we are discuss this question, the question is -Do you agree that ‘Shall I compare thee’ is a typical Petrarchan Sonnet? Defend your answer.

The structure of ‘Shall I compare thee’ is that of a Shakespearean sonnet. It consists of three quatrains and one couplet and has the characteristic rhyme scheme: abab cdcd efef gg. But the theme of Sonnet 18 is somewhat similar to Italian or Petrarchan sonnet. The subject matter of most of the Petrarchan sonnets are based on the love and beauty of a beloved, often an unattainable love. Similarly, the main theme of Sonnet 18 is the inappropriateness of the comparison between the beauty of summer and that of poet’s adored friend. In Petrarchan sonnet there is a shift in the subject matter in the sestet part which is also known as ‘volta’ which we can also notice in Sonnet 18. While the first twelve lines try to prove that there is no point in comparing the beauty of the youth with the transient summer, the last couple of lines makes a shift from the main subject matter and asserts the superiority of the poet’s verses.

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