Read the following stanza and answer the questions that follow:
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. Sometimes too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimm’d.

What is the addressee in the poem?

The correct option is Masculine gender.

Step-by-step explanation:

1. The stanza provided is the opening of William Shakespeare's Sonnet 18 ("Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?").
2. In Shakespearean sonnets, specifically the sequence from Sonnets 1 to 126, the poet addresses a young man, often referred to by scholars as the "Fair Youth."
3. The pronoun "thee" in the line "Shall I compare thee..." refers directly to this young man.
4. Because the addressee of this poem is a young man, the grammatical gender of the addressee is masculine.
5. Therefore, the addressee in the poem is of the masculine gender.