Every sonnet has three major qualities: There is a problem or question posed, there is the "turn" or "big BUT", and there is the solution or answer.
The first 8-12 lines usually houses the problem/question. There is a transition or change in mood/tone which indicates the BUT, and the last lines incorporate the solution/answer.
In sonnet 18,
Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer's lease hath all too short a date:
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimmed,
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance, or nature's changing course untrimmed:
is the question/problem. I will compare you to a summer's day. You are lovelier more even tempered. Summer is too unpredictable--rough winds, hot sun, and it is too short (only 3 months). The sun is dimmed, and beauty for beauty's sake doesn't always last...it is either by accident or time taken away.
BUT (here's the big BUT)
thy eternal summer shall not fade,
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st,
Nor shall death brag thou wander'st in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou grow'st,
So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.
your beauty will never fade--you will not lose it no matter what (death, time, accident) because time will hold your beauty in these lines and as long as men read it, you live.
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