Sonnet 18 this sonnet: it is not the actual young man who will be eternalized, but the description of him contained in the poem, and the poem contains scant or no description of the young man, but instead contains vivid and lasting descriptions of a summer day; which the young man is supposed to outlive. Sonnet 18 is a typical English or Shakespearean sonnet, having 14 lines of iambic pentameter: three quatrains followed by a couplet. It also has the characteristic rhyme scheme: "abab cdcd efef gg". The poem reflects the rhetorical tradition of an Italian or Petrarchan Sonnet. Petrarchan sonnets typically
Sonnet 41 that the loss of his mistress did not hurt him badly, because he did not love her, trying not to blame the youth but blaming him still. Sonnet 41 continues the saga with desperate attempts to excuse the youth's behavior, eventually admitting his hurt. In the last of the three (42) the speaker continues his trend of self-deception exemplified in sonnet 41. There are many allusions and textual references in this sonnet taken from other Shakespeare works. They have been helpful in understanding the context and creating our "modern" interpretation of the sonnet. Sonnet 41, lines 5-8: <poem> "Gentle thou