Reader Response to Sonnet 18 by William Shakespeare: 3 Interpretations

Reader response is a school of literary theory which stresses the importance of the reader's role in interpreting texts. According to this theory, the reader "creates his or her own meaning through a "transaction" with the text based on personal associations. Because all readers bring their own emotions, concerns, life experiences, and knowledge to their reading, each interpretation is subjective and unique." (Pat Mora and James Welch)

I'd like to share with you three different responses to a reading of Shakespeare's Sonnet 18.

But first, here is the poem:

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 dimm'd;

And every fair from fair sometime declines,

By chance or nature's changing course untrimm'd;

But thy eternal summer shall not fade

Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest;

Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st in his shade,

When in eternal lines to time thou growest:

So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,

So long lives this and this gives life to thee.

In the interpretation below, David Gilmour sings Michael Kamen's marvellous composition, which is a response framed as a song. The keyboard parts in this recording were played by Michael Kamen.



In the next interpretation, tatze1986 responds in the form of a multimedia presentation, which has been warmly praised by countless YouTubers for its elegant simplicity.



The final interpretation is my own response to the poem. This video was made several years ago as a fun project to help me practise my Photoshop skills, which I had picked up from my mother. I selected a Medieval piece of music to depict the timelesness of the theme of love. The piece was written by Hildegaard Von Bingen, an 11th century mystic and composer from Germany. I also selected the piece to demonstrate how new media allows collaboration across the ages. Hildegaard Von Bingen was born in 1098, William Shakespeare, in 1564, and Joy, in 1971. Three people, separated by almost a thousand years, collaborating on a composition produced in the 21st century!



My friend is a Barathanatyam dancer. I wonder how she would interpret this poem. Maybe if I begged hard enough, she will formulate a response in the form of a dance, which I will post here! My parents would be able to respond in the form of an illustration.

Basically, there are endless modes of response to a text. This is what makes reader response so exciting. What does this text mean to me? In framing our response in different modes, we become co-creators with the writer.