Shakespeare's Sonnets

• Engels
• Middelbare school
• vwo
• Leerjaar 4,5

Shakespearean sonnets

Lesson aims:

You can

- share your reading experiences with literary works using proper arguments (on paper as well as in a conversation/presentation).

- identify different types of literary texts and interpret them using literary terminology.

- give an outline of literary history, placing literary works in the right perspective.

What is important:

* That you have read all the weekly literature assignments and have answered the follow-up questions; 

* That you understand the literary devices and filled out the form;

* 

About Shakespeare:

* Was an English playwright, poet, and actor;

* Seen as the greatest writer in the English language and greatest dramatist. 

* His works consisted of 39 plays, 154 sonnets, three long narrative poems. 

* At the age of 18, he married Anne Hathaway. 

What is a sonnet?

How many sonnets did Shakespeare write?

1. 39
2. 10
3. 18
4. 154

Most of Shakespeare's sonnets are written in iambic pentameter. Explain what an iambic pentameter entails.

Examples: 

-A line of five iambic feet 

-A 10-syllable rhythm of :ta -TUM ta-TUM ta-TUM ta-TUM ta-TUM 

Shall I      / comPARE / thee TO /  a SUM      / mer's DAY? 

ta -TUM     ta-TUM       ta-TUM       ta-TUM         ta-TUM

What is a quatrain?

Examples:

- Stanza or short poem containing four lines. 

- Lines 2 and 4 must rhyme, Lines 1 and 3 may not rhyme. 

- Variations of abab, aabb, abcb

1. aabb
2. abab
3. abcb
4. abcd

This 1st sonnet by Shakespeare is about?

1. Loving beauty too much
2. procreation and obsession with beauty
3. Being vain and successful
4. admiring the beauty of flowers

Quatrain 1 "From fairest creatures
we desire increase" means what?

In quatrain 2 what does it say about
the young man's character?

In quatrain 3, what does Shakespeare
say about the man's beauty?

In the couplet, explain what was the duty
of the young man.

What is the theme of
Sonnet 12?

What does Shakespeare have doubts
about in Sonnet 12?

1. the beauty of creatures
2. if time moves too quickly
3. questioning the fair youth's beauty
4. if the young man knows what procreation is

Describe what "white" means in the sentence
"And sable curls all silvered o'er with white"?

"Save breed to brave him" means:

1. as we grow older being content of leaving offspring
2. the passing of time
3. when one is being too self-absorbed
4. death cannot be stopped except by having offspring

Describe the mood of the speaker with the
question "Shall I compare thee to a summer's
day?"

What is the theme of Sonnet 18?

Explain what a pun is, for example in verse 2
using the word "temperate"

According to the speaker, why does the beloved's beauty last forever?

In quatrain 1, when the speaker was separated from
his lover, with what does he compare to
this absence?

Which season of the year were
they separated?

Which season of the year were they separated?

1. end of autumn - beginning of winter
2. end of summer - beginning of autumn
3. end of winter - beginning of spring
4. end of spring - beginning of summer

Why is autumn an important season?

Widow'd wombs, dark days, freezings felt, bearing burdens are examples of:

1. kennings
2. personification
3. alliteration
4. allegory