Sonnet 18 in ‘Star Trek: The Next Generation’

Have you ever watched Star Trek? It was such a nice TV episodes, right? What more interesting about this TV episode was it applied the artistic value in the show and storyline. I was so impressed when the episode that related to the starship style could ever use a poem as apart of the storyline. 

“The Schizoid Man” 

By Tracy Torme and Gene Roddenberry. Perf. Patrick Stewart, Jonathan Frakes, LeVar Burton, Michael Dorn, and Brent Spiner. Dir. Les Landau. 

Star Trek: The Next Generation. Season 2, episode 6. 

Syndicated television. 23 January 1989. DVD. Paramount, 2002.

Shakespeare's sonnets appear in Star Trek episodes with startling frequency. Captain Picard freely delivers the last couplet of Sonnet 18; Captain Kirk was obliged to recite Sonnet 57. In the episode, he does so to express his knowledge that someone else's brain has been downloaded into Data's head (Data's head will give life to that second brain as long as it lives). Yes, I am aware. Weird.

But that is simply the couplet's outward meaning in this situation. The most important portion (and the part that's becoming an overarching thesis about Shakespeare's use in Star Trek) is that Shakespeare's words assist humanity to better comprehend itself. "So long lives this," in this imagined science fiction setting, is wrapped up with the futuristic setting. Shakespeare's words have stood the test of time, and humanity will stand the test of time as well.

Here's the full sonnet follows it.

XVIII - 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 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.

Sonnet 18 is a poem in which Shakespeare praises his beloved's beauty and describes all the ways in which it is better than a summer day. The overriding topic of this poem is love's stability and its potential to immortalise someone.

"Sonnet 18" is one of the most well-known of the 154 sonnets written by William Shakespeare, an English playwright and poet.

In the sonnet, the speaker wonders if he should compare the young man to a summer's day, but then adds that the young man possesses traits that are superior to those of a summer's day. He also points out that the characteristics of a summer day are prone to change and will fade over time. The speaker goes on to say that the young man will live on in the poem's verses for as long as it can be read. This sonnet has an irony: it is the description of the young man contained in the poem that will be immortalised, and the poem offers scarce or no descriptions of the young man, instead vivid and lasting descriptions of a summer day, which the young man is meant to outlive. 

Little did I know here is that William Shakespeare produced many beloved writings, including Sonnet 18 in which he compared his love to a summer's day. Now I realised how rich he was with his artistic talent. 

To our knowledge of this popular culture topic, 'Sonnet' 18 had been included in English Language Syllabus in Malaysia Secondary School around year 2000. Cool, isn't it? 😎😎