Upper secondary
Shakespeare’s Sonnets
“Shall I compare thee to a Summer’s day?”
1 Reading I
Read over the article once. What do
you think of the sonnet? Is it a good
love poem? Why? Why not?
2 Reading I
Find lines in the sonnet (a-n) that
correspond to the descriptions below
(1 to 10).
1 You are lovelier and
gentler.
2 And summer is far too
short.
3 At times the sun is too hot,
4 And is often hidden by the
clouds;
5 And everything beautiful
will eventually lose its
beauty,
6 But your youth shall not
fade,
7 Nor will you lose the
beauty that you have;
8 Nor will you die,
9 As long as there are
people on this earth,
10 As long as this poem survives,
you will too.
“Shall I compare thee to a Summer’s day?” is a line found in Shakespeare’s
most famous sonnet: Sonnet No. 18. This is the most quoted of all
Shakespeare’s sonnets (of which there were 154). Interestingly, his sonnets
aren’t always as romantic as you’d imagine. Some of the topics in them include
politics, beauty, mortality and, of course, love – although often the darker side
of love.
So, what is a sonnet? A sonnet is similar to a poem. However, a sonnet follows
a stricter structure. A standard sonnet is composed of three four-line stanzas.
These stanzas have the rhyming pattern abab, cdcd, efef, gg. This means that
the first line must rhyme with the third line, the second line with the fourth,
the fifth with the seventh, and so on. The last two lines (gg) are a couplet and
have their own rhyme.
Configuración principal
Feeling brave? Why not try writing your own sonnet?
Configuración secundaria
Configuración simplificada
Shakespearean Sonnet
Sonnet No.18
“Shall I compare thee to a Summer’s day?”
a. Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?
b. Thou art more lovely and more temperate.
c. Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
d. And summer's lease hath all too short a date.
e. Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
f. And often is his gold complexion dimm’d;
g. And every fair from fair sometime declines,
h. By chance or nature’s changing course untrimm'd;
i. But thy eternal summer shall not fade
j. Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st;
k. Nor shall Death brag thou wander’st in his shade,
l. When in eternal lines to time thou grow’st:
m.So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
n. So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.
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Answers 2 1 - b, 2 - d, 3 - e,
4 - f, 5 - g, 6 - i, 7 - j, 8 - k, 9 - m, 10 - n