How does Shakespeare glorify or immortalize his friend in sonnet-xviii?
How does Shakespeare glorify or immortalize his friend in sonnet-xviii?
Or, evaluate sonnet-xviii as a poem?
Or, what are the major images that Shakespeare uses to immortalize his friend?
Or, Critical Appreciation.

Ans : Shakespeare is one of the brilliant poets and dramatists in the Elizabethan period. 
Though is a world-famous dramatist, his poem alone would give him the foremost place. 
He is the universal poet standing at the peak of English literary areas.

Shakespeare’s sonnet one hundred and fifty-four in number, are the only direct expressions 
of the poets own feeling. By some critics, the sonnets are divided into two classes. 
One set of them addresses to man who was Shakespeare’s friend and the other to a woman
 who disdained his love. This sonnet under discussion belongs to class known as love.
 It deals with the glorification of his friend’s beauty. 
Here the poet exalts in emotion and passion looking at everlasting youth and beauty of this friend.

The sonnet is addressed to his friend who was blessed with uncommon physical beauty .
At the very beginning of the poem, the true love of the poet for his friend makes him 
open out his heart to compare the beauty of his friend to the brightness of a day in summer.
 But immediately, it comes to his realization that the beauty of summer is subject to 
change and it is short-lived. So his friend’s beauty is so lovely and more temperate 
than a summer’s day. Rough winds bring harm to the sweet buds of May and the sun’s 
light in summer is sometimes too bright and sometimes loses its brightness. 
The poet’s friend is, however more beautiful than a day in summer and his temper
 is more pleasing and sweet than the climate of summer.

All beautiful things on earth are subject to change or decay. But the poet’s view, 
his friends will never perish because his friend’s beauty has been immortalized and 
universalized in his sonnet. With a mind full of deep feeling and trust, the poet 
thinks that as long as the world will exist, his friend’s beauty will remain ever 
fresh in the minds of the people who will read this poem with great interest. 
The following lines convey this idea:

“So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.”

The poem is a Shakespearean sonnet. Its fourteen lines are divided in three quatrains and a couplet. 
Its rhyme scheme, abab cdcd efef gg creates its music which is the essence of a lyric. 
So it expresses the subjective feeling of a speaker. Here Shakespeare technically has 
made this structure of the poem to immortalize his friend’s beauty.

It is, therefore, clear that the theme of immortality has been developed in this poem 
through the image of summer, rough winds, flowers of spring, sun, heat, cloud and eclipse.
 They have been used either to compare or to contrast. In both cases, the intention 
is to glorify the friend and his permanent positive qualities.
 He has been immortalized with the immortal lines of the poem.

In short, this poem is a great tribute to the underlying glory of the beauty of his friend. 
This poem stands supreme among those sonnets that deal with the expression 
of the poets feeling and thoughts for his friend. This poem aims at universal quest of love and beauty.