Question

by Rudyard Kipling
If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too:
5If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or, being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise;

If you can dream — and not make dreams your master;
10If you can think — and not make thoughts your aim,
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same:
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
15Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build them up with worn-out tools;

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
20And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: 'Hold on!'

25If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with Kings — nor lose the common touch,
if neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
30With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And — which is more — you'll be a Man, my son!

"If" by Rudyard Kipling, from The Poems of Rudyard Kipling. In the public domain.

Sonnet XVIII
by William Shakespeare
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:
5Sometime 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,
10Nor 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.

"Sonnet XVIII" by William Shakespeare, from The Complete Works of William Shakespeare. In the public domain.

How does the comparison in line 1 of Sonnet XVIII contribute to the theme of the poem?

A.
It demonstrates that summer, like the poem's subject, has its flaws that are not obvious to the rest of the world.

B.
It illustrates that summer, like the poem's subject, returns to the speaker only one time per year and should be enjoyed.

C.
It introduces the link between summer and the poem's subject to illuminate the subject's enduring beauty.

D.
It expresses the speaker's admiration for the poem's subject, which is just as strong as the sunshine in summer.

Answer 1

C.

By opening with the comparison to a summer's day, the speaker links the beloved to the positive qualities of summer only to show the beloved's superiority and lasting beauty—“thy eternal summer shall not fade”—and to set up the poem’s theme that poetry preserves that enduring beauty.