006 – Sonnet 18 1 KEY

Later in the year, we will be studying a play done by William Shakespeare. You will also find yourself revisiting Shakespeare as you go through your high school career.

Shakespeare wrote many plays, but he is also famous for the poetry he wrote. He wrote 154 sonnets! As you will find out, sonnets are tough to write well…

An Iamb is a short or unstressed syllable, followed by one long or stressed syllable.

"The plowman homeward plods his weary way" consists of five iambs. (bolded parts are stressed)

006 – Sonnet 18 2 KEY

Note to teacher – questions 1-3 could be done partially on their own, and partially as a class (answers will vary)Before we get into the form of the sonnet too much, let’s look at the imagery.

1. Imagine the perfect summer day. It is early summer with just the perfect mix of comfortable temperature and weather. List the details about that perfect day on the chart that follows. Fill in the chart with images that appeal to the different senses.

Sight AWV

Touch AWV

Taste AWV

Smell AWV

Hearing AWV

2. Now write a general statement about the overall feeling created by this perfect day. _______________________________________________ AWV

3. Now think of a person you care about. a. How are this perfect summer day and this person alike? __________

AWVb. How are they different? _________________________________ AWV

006 – Sonnet 18 3 KEY

Now we will read through “Sonnet 18” together. Once we have read it, you will be asked to work on the questions on your own.

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, 5And 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 fadeNor lose possession of that fair thou owest; 10Nor 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.

First. Let’s analyze it by quatrains, to help us understand what is going on.

An analogy is a comparison between two things that are similar in some way, often used to help explain something or make it easier to understand

006 – Sonnet 18 4 KEY

Quatrain 1 Line 1 Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?

2 Thou art more lovely and more temperate:3 Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,4 And summer's lease hath all too short a date:

4. What season of the year is dealt with in this sonnet? (give your answer and line number) Summer (1)

5. The quatrain contains an analogy that compares The perfect summer day to his lover

6. Based on images from the chart you made earlier about the perfect summer day, explain why the comparison made by Shakespeare is an effective one. ______ _________________________________________________ Awv

7. What is the denotation (specific or literal meaning) of temperate in line 2? How is this word appropriate to describe both a day in summer and a person? ________________________________ Temperate: calm, self restrained, neither hot or cold

8. What is the denotation of darling (3) in this context? ________ Darling: very dear or beloved

9. Explain the metaphor in line 4, “summer’s lease”. ____________ A lease is a contract with a beginning and end. Summer has a beginning and ending.

006 – Sonnet 18 5 KEY

10. Now paraphrase quatrain 1. The speaker asks whether he should compare his love to a summer day. He says she is lovelier and more constant than summer. Summer has rough winds that shake the beautiful and beloved early blooms of May. The time period of summer is too short. The speaker enjoys summer, but considers it too short.

Quatrain 2Line 5 Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines, 5

6 And often is his gold complexion dimm'd; 7 And every fair from fair sometime declines,8 By chance or nature's changing course untrimm'd;

11. In line 5, what is the “eye of heaven”? ____________________ The sun

12. What is the pronoun his in line 6 referring to? _____________The sun

13. How could the “eye of heaven” be dimmed? ________________ AWV – behind the clouds, going down at night…

14. How is the sun further personified in line 6? _______________ Sun is given a complexion (people have complexions)

15. Explain two possible meanings of the word fair in line 7. ______ Fair – good (ie weather – clear and sunny)Fair – beautiful ( a person who is nice to look at can be called fair)Fair – honest (someone who decides in an honest way…)

a. For each meaning you identified, explain how something that is fair might “decline”.

-Weather can turn cold and rainy- A person’s beauty fades with time, or can be destroyed- A person who was honest may instead lie and cheat

006 – Sonnet 18 6 KEY

16. Paraphrase quatrain 2. _______________________________ At times the sun is too hot or the weather gets cloudy. Everything beautiful, a person or a day, will at some point lose its beauty and change for the worse – whether that change is caused by misfortune, fate, or unbalanced events

Quatrain 3Line 9 But thy eternal summer shall not fade

10 Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest; 1011 Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st in his shade,12 When in eternal lines to time thou growest:

17. What word signals a shift in the poem? ___________________but

a. The poem shifts from “a summers day” to ____________ His love

18. What word in line 1 is directly related to the word thy in line 9? Thee

19. The speaker states that “thy eternal summer shall not fade”. What is “eternal summer” a metaphor for? _________________ Eternal summer is a metaphor for his love’s beauty (your beauty will not fade)

20. How is death personified in line 11? ______________________ Death brags… this is a human trait

21. There is also a biblical allusion in line 11. Can you explain it? ___ The shade is the shadow of death. The Psalmist refers to “walking through the valley of the shadow of death”

22. What are possible meanings for the word lines in line 12? Lines = age lines in the face, lines of poetry

a. Which meaning is the most relevant and why? __________ Poetry lines are the most relevant because the speaker is declaring his love in the sonnet

23. Paraphrase the 3rd Quatrain: Your youth will not fade away, nor will you lose the beauty that you possess. Death will not claim you for his own. You and the memory of you will never die because in my lasting poetry you will live forever

006 – Sonnet 18 7 KEY

The end of this poem is a couplet. A couplet is comprised of two lines of verse that form a unit alone or as part of a poem, especially two that rhyme and have the same meter.

Final Couplet:

Line 13 So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,14 So long lives this and this gives life to thee.

24. Paraphrase the final couplet: __________________________ As long as the human race exists, this poem will live on and make you immortal – you will live on each time a person reads this poem

25. What does the final couplet reveal about the power of a literary work? literature can live on long after its author is dead

The Theme of a work, in this case a poem, is its implied view of life and human nature. It is the generalization about life at large that the piece leads the reader to see.

26. Fill in the following blanks to make a statement about theme.

Sonnet 18, by William Shakespeare illustrates the eternal nature of love and how it can be preserved through a work of art.

006 – Sonnet 18 8 KEY

Use the sonnet graph below to graph the sonnet.

Instructions: Write one syllable in each of the boxes to show the iambic pentameter of each line. In the last box, place the rhyme scheme letter for each of the lines

KEYLine# ˘

unstressed/

stressed˘ / ˘ / ˘ / ˘ / Rhym

e letter

1 Shall I com- pare thee to a sum- mer’s day? a

2 Thou art more love- ly and more tem- per- ate: b

3 Rough winds do shake the dar- ling buds of may, a

4 And sum- mer’s lease hath all too short a date; b

5 Some- time too hot the eye of sum- mer shines, c

6 And of- ten is his gold com- plex- ion dimmed:

d

7 And ev- ry fair from fair some- time de- clines, c

8 By chance or na- ture’s chan- ging course un- trimmed.

d

9 But thy e- ter- nal sum- mer shall not fade, e

10 Nor lose pos- ses- sion of that fair thou ow’st: f

11 Nor shall death brag thou wan- der’st in his shade, e

12 When in e- ter- nal lines to time thou grow’st:

f

13 So long as men can breathe

or eyes can see, g

14 So long lives this, and this gives life to thee. g