Renaissance lesson 4: Shakespeare + sonnets

• Engels
• Middelbare school
• vwo
• Leerjaar 5

What do you know about
William Shakespeare?

00:30

How many people could watch a play if they were crowded in?

1. 1500
2. 3000
3. 2000
4. 300

00:41

How was the term 'box office' coined?

01:20

How much money did you have to pay to get a cushion and a chair?

1. 1 penny
2. 2 pennies
3. 3 pennies
4. 4 pennies

03:16

What was the single, most valuable piece of equipment that the players owned?

1. The costumes
2. Props - a chair or bed
3. A beautiful dress
4. The pillars that held the stage up

04:49

Where was the space called 'hell'?

1. At the back of the theatre
2. Just outside the exit doors
3. Up in the box offices
4. Under the stage

Identify the three kinds of works Shakespeare wrote?

https:

00:40

Which play about "starr-crossed lovers" is the girl referring to?

1. Hamlet
2. The Taming of the Shrew
3. Romeo and Juliet
4. A Midsummer Night's Dream

Which version of sonnet 18 do you prefer?

Lorna(the first )

Akala (the second)

Sonnet 18

- Compares the author's
   lover to a summer's day 

- While summer is lovely...

- ... his lover is more beautiful
   and kind

- A summer's day will end,
   his love for her will not

• Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?
  
• Should I compare you to a summer's day?
  
• Thou art more lovely and more temperate.
  
• You are lovelier and more mild
  
• Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
  
• Even in May rough winds shake the delicate flower buds,
  
• And summer’s lease hath all too short a date.
  
• And the duration of summer is always too short.

• Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
  
• Sometimes the Sun, the eye of heaven, is too hot,
  
• And often is his gold complexion dimmed;
  
• And his golden face is often dimmed;
  
• And every fair from fair sometime declines,
  
• And beauty falls away from beautiful people,
  
• By chance or nature’s changing course untrimmed.
  
• Stripped by Chance or Nature's changing course.

• But thy eternal summer shall not fade,
• But your eternal summer will not fade,
• Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st,
  
• Nor will you lose possession of the beauty you own,
• Nor shall death brag thou wand’rest in his shade,
• Nor will death be able to boast that you wander in his shade,
• When in eternal lines to time thou grow’st.
  
• When you live in eternal lines, set apart from time.

boast

opscheppen

• So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
  
• As long as men breathe or have eyes to see,
• So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.
• As long as this sonnet lives, it will give life to you.

Original language

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 sometime 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.

Translation in modern English

Should I compare you to a summer's day?

You are lovelier and more mild

Even in May rough winds shake the delicate flower buds,

And the duration of summer is always too short.

Sometimes the Sun, the eye of heaven, is too hot,

And his golden face is often dimmed;

And beauty falls away from beautiful people,

Stripped by Chance or Nature's changing course.

But your eternal summer will not fade,

Nor will you lose possession of the beauty you own,

Nor will death be able to boast that you wander in his shade,

When you live in eternal lines, set apart from time.

As long as men breathe or have eyes to see,

As long as this sonnet lives, it will give life to you.

www.litcharts.com

Meter: iambic pentameter

It mimics the way people actually talk and it tends to fade into the background:  a subtle rhythmic pulse that one notices only when it is disturbed by unnatural or unexpected metrical substitutions. 

An example of perfect iambic pentameter is seen here:

And summer’s lease hath all too short a date;

 

An exception occurs in line 3, which begins with a spondee—an unusual and disturbing variation:

Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May

As a result, the line has six stresses instead of the usual five—a significant disturbance to the meter. The rough winds trouble the perfection of summer; they also disturb the poem's own perfection, The disturbance of the meter models the disturbance that the rough winds inflict on the "darling buds of May."

spondee

2 beklemtoonde lettergrepen

Sonnet 18

Questions

Page 28

• 1. Shakespeare begins the poem with a rhetorical question. How does het answer his own question?
• No, because that would be to compare yo to something whose beauty is flawed.
• 2. Why might a man compare his lover to a summer's day?
• Summer is generally regarded as something beautiful and agreeable.

 

3. What flaws in summer's beauty are identified in lines 3-6?

• The beauty of summer can be spoilt by rough winds;
  
• summer’s beauty is short-lived;
  
• summer can be too hot;
  
• often the sun is hidden

4. What is the 'eye of heaven' (line 5) a metaphor for?
Give a one-word answer!

5. What does 'his' (line 6) refer back to?
Give a one-word answer!

6. What is meant by 'nature's changing course'?

1. The natural cycle of life (which involves aging)
2. you can't precisely predict the weather.
3. Environmental issues

8. Where is Shakespeare's break of thought? (the volta)

1. between lines 5 and 6
2. between lines 6 and 7
3. between lines 8 and 9
4. Between lines 12 and 13

question 8 explained:

Between lines 8 and 9.

The first eight lines are mainly about the season summer; the final six lines are about the poet making his lover’s summer (i.e. beauty) immortal.

9. What contrast does the poet make in lines 7 and 10?

In nature, everything ultimately loses its beauty, but you will never lose yours.

10. What example of personification can be found in the poem?

1. Sun
2. Death
3. Summer's day
4. Nature

question 10 explained:

 Line 11: ‘Death’ is turned into a name by giving it a capital letter, and Death is said to brag/boast (opscheppen), which is something only a person can do.

11. What does 'this' (line 14) refer to?
Give a 2-word answer.

12. What message is contained in the concluding couplet?

13. The word 'do' in line 3 is not stricly necessary in a grammatical sense. Why does he choose to include it?

www.litcharts.com

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;

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 sound;

I 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.

Sonnet 130

- Joke on the conventions of love

- Doesn't praise his lover: 
      - not white as snow
      - no beautiful red lips
      - no golden hair

- Love doesn't need to be extreme
   to be real, against unrealistic ideals

Questions

about Sonnet 130

1. Which kind of sonnet is sonnet 130?

1. English : 3 quatrains and a concluding rhyming couplet.
2. Italian: an octave and a sextet.
3. Italian : 3 quatrains and a concluding rhyming couplet.
4. English: an octave and a sextet.

2. Where is the volta (break of thought) in this sonnet?

1. between lines 4 and 5
2. between lines 8 and 9
3. between lines 12 and 13
4. There is no volta.

Question 2 explained

Between lines 12 and 13. This is apparent both from the content (the first twelve lines are saying that the poet’s beloved does not possess various extraordinary qualities, whereas the last two lines are saying she is nevertheless very special) and from the use of ‘yet’.

The layout (indentation of the last two lines) draws attention to this as well. In a Shakespearean sonnet, this is the usual place for the volta.

They are not as bright as the sun.

They are nowhere near as red as coral.

It isn’t as white as snow

They are not the colour of roses.

It is like a lot of black wires

She doesn’t smell as nice as some perfumes

not as nice as music

She walks on the ground like any mortal;

4. Which part of the poem carries most weight: lines 1 to 12 or lines 13 to 14?

5. Do you think that this sonnet paints a more recognisable picture of feminine beauty than an idealistic sonnet?

6. Can you think of a modern song in which the idealistic notion of what a woman or man should be like is confirmed or rejected?

00:31

Fill in the missing word:
.... is my bitch.

1. iambic pentameter
2. Big
3. I am better
4. Peter

00:32

Shakespeare just mentioned his nickname:

1. the wizard
2. the bard
3. the beard
4. the fart

01:40

You will develop a hunch.
Vertaal: "a hunch"?

1. een bochel
2. een voorgevoel
3. middageten
4. een sonnet