Shakespeare’s Sonnets

Love…

Which is the best season for love? Why?

What images of such season does love evoke?

Does love last longer than a season?

Here’s Shakespeare’s opinion…

In a sonnet, of course!

Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer’s Day?

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 dimmed;

And every fair from fair sometimes declines,

By chance, or nature’s changing course, untrimmed:

But thy eternal summer shall not fade

Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st,

Nor shall Death brag thou wand’rest in his shade

When in eternal lines to time thou grow’st.

So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,

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

Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer’s Day?

Try to work out the rhyme scheme

Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer’s Day?Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day? aThou art more lovely and more temperate. bRough winds do shake the darling buds of May, aAnd summer’s lease hath all too short a date. bSometime too hot the eye of heaven shines, cAnd often is his gold complexion dimmed; dAnd every fair from fair sometimes declines, cBy chance, or nature’s changing course, untrimmed: dBut thy eternal summer shall not fade eNor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st, fNor shall Death brag thou wand’rest in his shade eWhen in eternal lines to time thou grow’st. f So long as men can breathe or eyes can see, g So long lives this, and this gives life to thee g

Text Analysis

Now, let’s take a closer look at each stanza…

Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer’s Day?Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day? a

Thou art more lovely and more temperate. b

Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May, a

And summer’s lease hath all too short a date. b

. Any figures of speech here?

Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer’s Day?

Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day? Rhetorical question

Thou art more lovely and more temperate. Repetition: more

Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,

And summer’s lease hath all too short a date. Parallelism of l. 3 & 4

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

This is taken usually to mean 'What if I compared you to a day in the summer?'

The stock comparisons of the loved one to all the beauteous things in nature hover in the background throughout.

Notice the recurrence of words such as 'summer', 'days', ‘fair', 'sweet'.

2. Thou art more lovely and more temperate:

The youth's beauty is more perfect than the beauty of a summer day.

more temperate = more gentle, more restrained, whereas the summer's day might have violent excesses in store, such as are about to be described.

3. Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,

May was a summer month in Shakespeare's time, because the calendar in use lagged behind the true sidereal calendar by at least a fortnight.

darling buds of May - the beautiful, much loved buds of the early summer; favourite flowers.

4. And summer's lease hath all too short a date:

Legal terminology. The summer holds a lease on part of the year, but the lease is too short, and has an early termination (date).

Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer’s Day?Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day? a

Thou art more lovely and more temperate. b

Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May, a

And summer’s lease hath all too short a date. b

Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines, c

And often is his gold complexion dimmed; d

And every fair from fair sometimes declines, c

By chance, or nature’s changing course, untrimmed: d

5. Sometime too hot the eye of heaven

shines,

Sometime = on occasion, sometimes

the eye of heaven = the sun.

 6. And often is his gold complexion dimmed,

his gold complexion = his (the sun's) golden face. It would be dimmed by clouds and on overcast days generally.

 7. And every fair from fair sometime declines,

All beautiful things (every fair) occasionally become inferior in comparison with their essential previous state of beauty (from fair). They all decline from perfection.

8. By chance, or nature's changing course

untrimmed:

By chance accidents, or by the fluctuating tides of nature, which are not subject to control

Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer’s Day?Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day? a

Thou art more lovely and more temperate. b

Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May, a

And summer’s lease hath all too short a date. b

Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines, c

And often is his gold complexion dimmed; d

And every fair from fair sometimes declines, c

By chance, or nature’s changing course, untrimmed: d

But thy eternal summer shall not fade e

Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st, f

Nor shall Death brag thou wand’rest in his shade e

When in eternal lines to time thou grow’st. f

9. But thy eternal summer shall not fade,

Referring forwards to the eternity promised by the ever living poet in the next few lines, through his verse.

 10. Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st,

Nor shall it (your eternal summer) lose its hold on that beauty which you so richly possess.

ow'st = ownest, possess. By metonymy we understand 'nor shall you lose any of your beauty'.

11. Nor shall death brag thou wander'st in his shade,

Several half echoes here. The biblical ones are probably 'Oh death where is thy sting? Or grave thy victory?' implying that death normally boasts of his conquests over life. And Psalms 23.3.: 'Yea though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death I will fear no evil '

In classical literature the shades flitted helplessly in the underworld like ghosts. Shakespeare would have been familiar with this through Virgil's account of Aeneas' descent into the underworld in Aeneid Bk. VI.

12. When in eternal lines to time thou grow'st,

in eternal lines = in the undying lines of my verse. Perhaps with a reference to progeny, and lines of descent, but it seems that the procreation theme has already been abandoned.

to time thou grow'st - you keep pace with time, you grow as time grows.

Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer’s Day?Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day? aThou art more lovely and more temperate. bRough winds do shake the darling buds of May, aAnd summer’s lease hath all too short a date. bSometime too hot the eye of heaven shines, cAnd often is his gold complexion dimmed; dAnd every fair from fair sometimes declines, cBy chance, or nature’s changing course, untrimmed: dBut thy eternal summer shall not fade eNor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st, fNor shall Death brag thou wand’rest in his shade eWhen in eternal lines to time thou grow’st. f So long as men can breathe or eyes can see, g So long lives this, and this gives life to thee g

13. So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,

For as long as humans live and breathe upon the earth, for as long as there are seeing eyes on Earth.

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

That is how long these verses will live, celebrating you, and continually renewing your life.

But one is left with a slight residual feeling that perhaps the youth's beauty will last no longer than a summer's day, despite the poet's proud boast.

Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer’s Day?Oooh Baby I think I shall compare you to a summer’s dayBut, you know, you’re prettier and even better, even calmBecause sometimes it gets windy and the buds on the trees get shaken offAnd sometimes summer doesn’t last very long Sometimes it’s too hot And everything gorgeous loses its looks Everyone and everything gets old and ugly and shabby But (note the turn) you’re going to keep your looks foreverYour beauty will last foreverI’m going to make sure that you never lose your good looksAnd that nasty old Death can never brag about owning youBecause I shall write this poem about youAs long as men can breath, as long as men can see Then this poem lives, and it gives life and memory to your beauty.

Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer’s Day?A BRIEF COMMENTARY

 This is one of the most famous of all the sonnets, justifiably so. But it would be a mistake to take it entirely in isolation, for it links in with so many of the other sonnets through the themes of the descriptive power of verse; the ability of the poet to depict the fair youth adequately, or not; and the immortality conveyed through being hymned in these 'eternal lines'.

It is noticeable that here the poet is full of confidence that his verse will live as long as there are people drawing breath upon the earth, whereas later he apologises for his poor wit and his humble lines which are inadequate to encompass all the youth's excellence.

Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer’s Day?A BRIEF COMMENTARY

 Now, perhaps in the early days of his love, there is no such self-doubt and the eternal summer of the youth is preserved forever in the poet's lines.

The poem also works at a rather curious level of achieving its objective through dispraise. The summer's day is found to be lacking in so many respects (too short, too hot, too rough, sometimes too dingy), but curiously enough one is left with the abiding impression that 'the lovely boy' is in fact like a summer's day at its best, fair, warm, sunny, temperate, one of the darling buds of May, and that all his beauty has been wonderfully highlighted by the comparison.

Sonnet 130My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun,Coral is far more red, than her lips red,If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head:I have seen roses damasked, red and white,But no such roses see I in her cheeks,And in some perfumes is there more delight,Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.I love to hear her speak, yet well I know,That music hath a far more pleasing soundI grant I never saw a goddess go, My mistress when she walks treads on the ground,

And yet by heaven I think my love as rare,As any she belied with false compare.

Art Work…

Now, you have five minutes to draw the portrait of Shakespeare’s “Fair Lady”.

A prize to the most resembling picture!

Quick Quiz- Who is the “fair youth” to whom Shakespeare seemingly

dedicated his Sonnet “Shall I compare…?”

- Which natural elements is the fair youth compared to?

- How will his beauty become immortal?

- What does the “fair lady” look like?

- Which qualities does the poet associate to her breath and her gait?

- Is the poet’s love any lesser because of such qualities of the lady?

- Explain how Shakespeare manages to mock all sonnetteers and Petrarch himself in one very sharp line.

Webwork

Watch the following videos on YouTube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7IPj7Jnac4

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8VwlXXhUSCY&feature=related

And add a three-line comment each by

signing with your first name. I’ll be checking, I promise!

Learning Task

A. Choose one of the sonnets presented in class

B. Learn it by heart

C. Perform it in class and be ready to explain its meaning