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Written in 1609 and undoubtedly the best known of the 154 sonnets written by English playwright William Shakespeare, Sonnet 18 has emerged as the nation’s favourite poem, coming top with 18% of the vote.
Despite popular belief, Sonnet 18 does not appear in Romeo and Juliet, and in fact Shakespeare wrote this poem as part of his Fair Youth sequence of sonnets, which historians actually believe were about a young man.
The nationwide poll, commissioned to mark National Poetry Day on 7th Oct, revealed that the second most loved poem (with 10% of the vote) was Daffodils by William Wordsworth, also commonly referred to as ‘I wandered lonely as a cloud’.
The poem was inspired by an event on 15th April 1802 when Wordsworth and his sister Dorothy came across a long belt of daffodils while wandering in a forest.
The Raven, a narrative poem written by American writer Edgar Allen Poe in 1845, came in joint third place with 9% of the vote, sharing the accolade with If by Nobel laureate Rudyard Kipling (9%) written circa 1895 (with also 9% of the vote).
The latter is a literary example of Victorian-era stoicism and is written in the form of paternal advice to the poet’s son.
The study, by insight agency Perspectus Global, found that Lewis Carrol’s nonsense poem Jabberwocky - which was included in his 1871 novel Through the Looking-Glass, the sequel to Alice's Adventures in Wonderland - came fifth in the top 25 poems with 8%.
How Do I Love Thee written by Elizabeth Barrett Browning in 1890, Lord Byron’s 1814 short poem She Walks in Beauty, and Ode to a Nightingale by John Keats written in 1819 also made the list.
More modern poems also featured in the top 25 however, such as Warsan Shire’s, For Women Who Are Difficult to Love (2015), Cat D by George the Poet (2015), The Point by Kae Tempest (2014) and Cocoon by Holly Poetry (2015).
According to the poll of 2,000 adults, 18% of us love the sound of poetry being read aloud and 8% often put pen to paper and write their own material.
And although many long-standing poems topped the list, 15% of those polled think rap is modern poetry with as much merit as traditional verses.
A spokesman for Perspectus Global said: “Poetry can evoke strong emotions and this reveals the poems that are most loved - many which have endured for centuries.
“Shakespeare’s Sonnet 18 is a worthy winner, touching on the themes of unattainable love and mortality, and capturing the imagination of generation upon generation of readers.”
The study also found that one in 10 adults claim they can confidently recite famous poems and a romantic 8% have written poetry for a lover.
Of those polled, 17% said a good poem can be evocative and memorable and 16% felt children should be made to memorise famous poems at school, although 21% confessed to not reading a single poem since they were a child.
An imaginative 12% said their favourite poem can transport them away to somewhere completely different - and 17% admitted that their favourite poems rhymed.
THE 25 GREATEST POEMS OF ALL TIME
Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer’s Day - William Shakespeare 18%
Daffodils - William Wordsworth 10%
The Raven - Edgar Allen Poe 9%
If - Rudyard Kipling 9%
Jabberwocky - Lewis Carroll 8%
Still I Rise - Maya Angelou 7%
How Do I Love Thee - Elizabeth Barrett Browning
7%
She Walks in Beauty - Lord Byron 6%
Ode to a Nightingale - John Keats 6%
Under Milk Wood - Dylan Thomas 6%
The Highwayman - William Blake ` 6%
Ozymandias - Percy Bysshe Shelley 6%
Dulce et Decorum est - Wilfred Owen 6%
The Tyger - William Blake 6%
Paradise Lost - John Milton 6%
Remember - Christina Rosetti 5%
Dis Poetry - Benjamin Zephaniah 5%
The Lady of Shalott - Lord Tennyson 5%
For Women Who Are Difficult to Love - Warsan Shire 5%
Yes I’ll Marry You - Pam Ayres 5%
The Way My Mother Speaks - Carol Anne Duffy
5%
The Point - Kae Tempest 5%
(I Married a) Monster from Outer Space - John Cooper Clarke 5%
Cat D - George the Poet 4%
Cocoon - Holly Poetry 4%
FAQs
William Shakespeare's Sonnet 18 is justifiably considered one of the most beautiful verses in the English language. The sonnet's enduring power comes from Shakespeare's ability to capture the essence of love so clearly and succinctly.
What kind of poem is Sonnet 18 answer? ›
Structure. 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.
What is the theme of Sonnet 18 quizlet? ›
Themes: Love & Nature: Nature fades/beauty fades, but art is forever.
What does the conclusion of Sonnet 18 mean? ›
And summer is fleeting: its date is too short, and it leads to the withering of autumn, as “every fair from fair sometime declines.” The final quatrain of the sonnet tells how the beloved differs from the summer in that respect: his beauty will last forever (“Thy eternal summer shall not fade...”) and never die.
What was so special about Sonnet 18? ›
Shakespeare uses repetition throughout "Sonnet 18" to help emphasize the themes of love, beauty, art, and immortality. He also uses figurative language such as personification to give the sun human characteristics such as an eye and a complexion. This helps to bring the poem to life.
What is the message of Sonnet 18 by William Shakespeare? ›
The stability of love and its power to immortalize someone is the overarching theme of this poem. The poet begins with an opening question: “Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?” and spends the rest of the poem answering that question. The poem is straightforward in language and intent.
Is Sonnet 18 a love poem? ›
Answer and Explanation: Sonnet 18 is indeed a love poem, as most of Shakespeare's sonnets were. It is a poem about loving someone so much that the speaker seeks to immortalize him in a poem so that he can never truly die.
What is the summary of Sonnet 18? ›
“Sonnet 18” at a Glance
| Poem | “Sonnet 18” |
|---|
| Mood | Admiring |
| Imagery | Visual, tactile |
| Literary devices | Metaphor, imagery, personification, hyperbole, repetition |
| Overall meaning | The beauty of an individual is more constant than the summer weather and can even remain in death when immortalized in writing. |
6 more rowsAnswer and Explanation: Sonnet 18 refers to a young man. It is one of Shakespeare's Fair Youth sonnets (1–126), which were all written to a man that Shakespeare urged to marry and have children.
What is the key image of Sonnet 18? ›
Answer. Answer: The imagery of the Sonnet 18 include personified death and rough winds. The poet has even gone further to label the buds as 'darling' (Shakespeare 3).
The symbolic meaning of life and nature and real love shows the readers on what the speaker emphasizes in this poem. It is not only love between lovers can be symbolized but also the love between friendship. Friendship will last forever from the poet's mind.
What is the reflection of Sonnet 18? ›
In a strikingly circular motion, it is this very sonnet that both reflects and preserves the young man's beauty. Sonnet 18 can thus be read as honoring not simply to the speaker's beloved but also to the power of poetry itself, which, the speaker argues, is a means to eternal life.
What is the problem in Sonnet 18? ›
In Sonnet 18, the speaker ponders the fact that the person they are addressing has an incomparable beauty that is not adequately reflected in anything that exists in nature. Furthermore, all things either fade over time or are claimed by death.
What is the mood of Sonnet 18? ›
Sonnet 18 writes eloquently of the youth and beauty of the object of the poet's affection, using the weather and the seasons as comparison. The opening line of this sonnet is Shall I compare thee to a summer's day? The tone, or mood, of this poem is affectionate, admiring, and intimate.
What shall death not brag in Sonnet 18? ›
Answer: But your eternal summer will never fade, nor will you lose possession of your beauty, nor shall death brag that you are wandering in the underworld, once you're captured in my eternal verses. As long as men are alive and have eyes with which to see, this poem will live and keep you alive.
What is the most famous sonnet of all time? ›
Written in 1609 and undoubtedly the best known of the 154 sonnets written by English playwright William Shakespeare, Sonnet 18 has emerged as the nation's favourite poem, coming top with 18% of the vote.
What is Shakespeare's most famous poem called? ›
Sonnet 18 — “Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?” This sonnet is perhaps Shakespeare's most famous, or at least his most quoted. It begins with the line “Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?” The answer is clearly yes, as the following thirteen lines are devoted to doing just that.
Why is the sonnet form so popular? ›
The brevity of the form made sonnets easy to write in a short amount of time, while the universal theme of unrequited love never seemed to get old… though later sonneteers, such as John Donne, found that sonnets could be used to explore other themes.
What is the most popular sonnet form? ›
The first and most common sonnet is the Petrarchan, or Italian. Named after one of its greatest practitioners, the Italian poet Petrarch, the Petrarchan sonnet is divided into two stanzas, the octave (the first eight lines) followed by the answering sestet (the final six lines).
