Reem Abdulkarim

Sonnet Poems Style, Theme and Tone

Shall I Compare Thee to a Summers Day? by Shakespeare, How Do I Love Thee?
by Elizabeth Barret Browning and finally Sonnet XVII by Pablo Neruda all are sonnets with
similar writing styles, themes and tones.
In How Do I Love Thee? the sonnet is written in Petrarchan pattern (abba abba cdc
dcd) divided into two with one group into eight lines followed by a group of six at the end. The
tone of the sonnet is cheerful and happy. The speaker is describing their love for somebody and
they express it in a light and making it sound like it is wonderful and that it would last forever
even after death. The speaker explains, I love thee with the breath, smiles, tears, of all my life;
and, if God choose, I shall but love thee better after death (13-14). The speaker will love the
person even after death and it shows how strong their love for them is. The theme for this sonnet
is love. The speaker describes all the different ways that they love the other and the poem is all
about love. Its a love poem and its pretty clear as the word love is mentioned a lot throughout
the poem and also being in the title of the poem. The speaker starts some of the lines with I love
thee and explains one of the ways that they love that person.
In Shall I Compare Thee to a Summers Day, the sonnet is written in Shakespearean
style with three quatrains, couples and a rhyme scheme of abab cdcd efef gg. The tone of the
poem is not hard or negative. It uses beautiful a beautiful summers day and its flaws to describe
someones beauty. It was kind of soft in a way. Summer is nice and peaceful but its when all of
nature really shows so it was nice to use it to describe beauty because nature is beautiful but it
has its flaws. The theme of this poem is love because the speaker is describing someone that they
loves beauty and complimenting them but at the same time telling the truth. The speaker

Reem Abdulkarim

explains, Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines, And often is his gold complexion
dimmed; And every fair from sometime declines (5-7). The last line meaning that beauty
doesnt last forever and it fades as you get older. Here the speaker tells the truth about beauty and
how sometimes its not so beautiful and it wont last.
In Sonnet XVII, the sonnet is written in Petrarchan pattern (abba abba cdc dcd) with
two quatrains (four lines) and two tercets (three lines) but it does not rhyme. The tone of the
sonnet is strong and expressive. The speaker strongly talks about the way they love someone but
at the end, after all that explaining, the speaker says they just love them and they dont know
anything else. So I love you because I know no other way This line means that the speaker
just loves the person and thats all. The theme of the sonnet is love because the sonnet is just
talking about the speakers love for a person and is just elaborating on their love.
In conclusion, all the sonnets were similar to each other. They all have the same theme of
love because the speakers all talk and explain about their love for someone. The sonnet styles are
all different. Both Sonnet XVII and How Do I Love Thee? have the same styles but Sonnet
XVII does not rhyme. Shall I Compare Thee to a Summers Day? being the only sonnet
written in a Shakespearean style. Finally, the tones of the poem are all strong and they are all
expressive. All the poems were the same when it came to tone and theme but different when it
came to their styles.