Shakespearean Sonnet Presentations. Your grade will be based on the quality of your analysis and the clarity of your presentation.

(1)

Shakespearean Sonnet Presentations

In groups, assigned by the teacher, you will work to explicate and analyze Shakespearean sonnets. Groups will have time in class to prepare and will teach the sonnets to the rest of the class.

Your grade will be based on the quality of your analysis and the clarity of your presentation.

Because every group member will receive a separate score, each person must be equally involved in the presentation to the class. You will turn in a typed copy of your answers on the day of your presentation. Answers should be in complete sentences with no unidentified pronouns.

Group 1 Assignments: Read and analyze Shakespeare’s Sonnet 1. 1. Explicate the sonnet

A. Mark the iambic pentameter B. Define the quatrains

C. Define the couplets D. Mark the rhyme scheme E. Mark (and explain) the volta

2. Paraphrase lines 1 and 2. What do you think is meant by “fairest creatures” and “beauty’s rose? 3. Paraphrase lines 3 and 4. Who carries on talent, intellect, and memories when parents die? 4. What does it mean to be “contracted to your own bright eyes?” (line 5)

5. What is “feeding his light’s flame?” (line 6)

Group 2 Assignments: Read and analyze Shakespeare’s Sonnet 1.

1. What does it mean to make “a famine where abundance lies?” (line 7) How might you label this type of imagery? (What sense does it appeal to?)

2. Characterize the speaker of the sonnet. What can you tell about him/her? Support your assertions with clues from the sonnet.

3. How would you describe the person the speaker is addressing? (keeping in mind that the reader’s view comes solely from the speaker of the sonnet)

4. How might you paraphrase “yourself your foe, to your sweet self too cruel?” 5. Paraphrase the third quatrain.

6. Consider the logical structure of Sonnet 1.

A. What is the moral premise stated in the first quatrain?

B. How does the beloved young man violate that moral premise as described in the second quatrain? C. What reason is given in the third quatrain to change his ways and obey the moral premise?

(2)

2. Many people regret growing old. How do you think the speaker of the sonnet feels about it? Support your answer with details from the sonnet. Does the organization of the sonnet contribute to this idea? 3. How does the thought in the final couplet relate to the rest of the sonnet?

4. Explain in general terms the symbolism and relationship between a human lifetime (birth/youth, prime

of life, middle/old age, approaching death/death) and the following:

a. The seasons of the year (spring, summer, autumn, winter)

b. The sun’s journey across the sky during one day (sunrise, high noon, sunset, nightfall) c. A fire (from first spark to growing fire, to bonfire, to extinguishing/burning out)

Make connections. Feel free to use a visual.

1. Do you agree with the speaker’s claim that the nearness of death makes “love more strong”? Why or why not. Explain.

2. To what season of the year does the speaker compare himself? Why? 3. To what time of day does the speaker compare himself? Why?

4. What comparison does the speaker make in the third quatrain? Why?

5. In the “bare ruined choirs” of line 4, the word ‘choirs’ refers literally to the loft where church singers perform. What does it mean as Shakespeare uses it here?

6. Explain the meaning of “death’s second self” in line 8.

(3)

2. Ordinarily, the final couplet of a sonnet offers a summary or solution. This final couplet is a bit different. What point does it make about the content of the rest of the sonnet?

3. Paraphrase the following lines: a. “the marriage of true minds” b. “the edge of doom”

4. What is your opinion of the speaker’s concept of true love?

1. Besides true love, what other human qualities or ideals might be considered unalterable? Explain. 2. According to the speaker, what are three things that love is not?

3. Paraphrase the following lines and explain a. “alters when it alteration finds”

b. “looks on tempests and is never shaken” 4. To what is love compared in the second quatrain?

5. What are the points of similarity between true love and the North Star? Paraphrase the line “the star to every wandering bark.”

6. The speaker notes that “Love’s not time’s fool.” (a) What does he mean? (b) How does this idea fit with the central theme of the sonnet?

(4)

2. Sonnet 130 is often called an anti-Petrarchan sonnet. What do you think is meant by anti-Petrarchan? 3. There are indications even before the final couplet that the speaker loves his mistress despite her

supposed imperfections. What is one such indication? 4. Identify the transition used in line 13.

Group 8 Assignments: Read and analyze Shakespeare’s Sonnet 130. 1. Do you find Sonnet 130 to be humorous? Why or why not?

2. What is less than perfect about the mistress’s (a) lips? (b) cheeks? (c) breath? (d) voice? Explain each in detail.

3. There seem to be indications even before the final couplet that the speaker loves his mistress in spite of her imperfections. What words or phrases indicate this?

4. Choose one simile and one metaphor from the sonnet. Decide why Shakespeare might have used it explain the comparison.

5. What is the significance of the word “any” in line 14? 6. Discuss the term “false compare.”

(5)

NAME:_____________________________________________PERIOD:

Sonnet #1

William Shakespeare

From fairest creatures we desire increase

1

_,

That thereby beauty’s rose might never die,

But as the riper

2

_{should by time decrease,}

His tender

3

_{heir might bear his memory.}

But thou, contracted to thine own bright eyes,

Feed’st thy light’s flame with self-‐substantial fuel,

Making a famine where abundance lies,

Thyself thy foe, to thy sweet self too cruel.

Thou that art now the world’s fresh ornament

And only herald to the gaudy spring,

Within thine own bud bury’st thy content

And, tender churl

4

_{, make’st waste in niggarding}

5

_.

Pity the world, or else this glutton be,

To eat the world’s due, by the grave and thee.

1_{Increase = Procreation, offspring} 2_{Riper = Older, more mature} 3_{Tender = young, delicate, soft}

4_{Churl = Ill-‐natured, miserly old man (think Scrooge)} 5_{Niggarding = Being stingy, miserly, or selfish}

(6)

Sonnet 73

That time of year thou mayst in me behold

When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang

Upon those boughs which shake against the cold,

Bare ruined choirs, where late the sweet birds sang.

In me thou see’st the twilight of such day

As after sunset fadeth in the west;

Which by and by black night doth take away,

Death’s second self, that seals up all in rest.

In me thou see’st the glowing of such fire,

That on the ashes of his youth doth lie,

As the death-‐bed, whereon it must expire,

Consum’d with that which it was nourish’d by

6

_.

This thou perceiv’st, which makes thy love more strong,

To love that well, which thou must leave ere long.

(7)

Sonnet 116 –

Let me not to the marriage of true minds

Admit impediments. Love is not love

Which alters when it alteration finds,

Or bends with the remover to remove.

Oh, no! It is an ever-‐fix*ed mark

7

,

That looks on tempests and is never shaken.

It is the star to every wandering bark

8

_,

Whose worth’s unknown, although his

9

_{height be taken.}

Love’s not Time’s fool, though rosy lips and cheeks

Within his bending sickle’s compass come.

Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,

But bears it out even to the edge of doom.

If this be error and upon me proved,

I never writ, nor no man ever loved.

7_{Mark – seamark; landmark} 8_{Bark – sailing ship}

(8)

Sonnet 130

My 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

10

_;

If hairs be wires

11

_{, black wires grow on her head.}

I have seen roses damasked

12

_{, 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.

13

I love to hear her speak. Yet well I know

That music hath a far more pleasing sound.

I grant I never saw a goddess go;

14

My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground.

And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare

As any she belied

15

_{with false compare}

16

_.

10_{Dun = A dull brownish gray}

11_{Wires = wire was not seen as an industrial object, but rather one used in jewelry and lavish embroidery. The shock here is} not the use of wires, but rather they are black rather than golden.

12_{Damasked -‐ variegated}

13_{Reeks – emanates; not as harsh a term as today [the sonneteers beloved is usually compared to Venus—skin like lilies, lips} like rubies, breath like perfume, eyes like the sun]

14_{Go -‐ walk}

15_{Belied – compared falsely, misrepresented}