Understanding Shakespeare Sonnet 18

8/11/2019 Understanding Shakespeare Sonnet 18

1/13


2/13


3/13

Teacher OverviewUnderstanding Shakespeare: Sonnet 18

Copyright 2012 Laying the Foundation, Inc., Dallas, TX. All rights reserved. Visit us online at www.ltftraining.org.

L.3 Apply knowledge of language to understand how

language functions in different contexts, to make

effective choices for meaning or style, and tocomprehend more fully when reading or listening.

Understand II

L.6 Acquire and use accurately a range of generalacademic and domain-specific words and phrases

sufficient for reading, writing, speaking, and

listening at the college and career readiness level;demonstrate independence in gathering vocabulary

knowledge when considering a word or phrase

important to comprehension or expression.

Understand II


4/13



LTF Skill FocusThe foundation for LTF English lessons is the Skill Progression Chart that identifies key skills

for each domain, beginning with grade 6 and adding more complex skills at each subsequent

grade level while reinforcing skills introduced at previous grade levels. The Skill Focus for eachindividual lesson identifies the skills actually addressed in that lesson.

Levels of Thinking

Understand Apply Analyze Evaluate Create

Close Readingwri tten, spoken, and visual texts

Grammarpurposeful use of language for effect

Compositionwri tten, spoken, and visual products

Reading Strategies

Determining authors

purpose

Inference

Paraphrase

Literary ElementsAnalogy

Dictionconnotationdenotation

vocabulary

ImageryRhetorical Shift

Theme

Figures of Speech

(Figurative Language)Metaphor

Personification

Sound DevicesMeter

Rhyme

Rhythm

Literary TechniquesAllusion

Literary Forms

VerseSonnet

Elizabethan

Petrarchan

Types (modes)Expository

analytical

Multiple Modes

Imaginative


5/13



Connections to AP*Analysis of diction, imagery, and the literary devices that contribute to thematic meaning is a

skill that students must demonstrate on both the free response and multiple choice sections of AP

English Literature and AP English Language exams. The Literature exam contains a freeresponse prompt and multiple choice questions on poetry, so it is critical that students develop an

understanding of analysis and language specific to poetry.

*Advanced Placement and AP are registered trademarks of the college Entrance Examination Board. The College

Board was not involved in the production of this material.

Materials and Resources

Sonnet 18 by William Shakespeare

copies of Student Activity

handout: Graphing the Sonnet

Assessments

The following kinds of formative assessments are embedded in this lesson:

guided questions graphic organizer

frame statements

writing assignment

The following additional assessments are located on the LTF website

LTF Posttest: 2006 Grade 9 Style Analysis on The Possession and Slipping

LTF Posttest: 2006 Grade 10 Style Analysis on Wing Road and Ex-Basketball Player

Teaching Suggestions

Students will work through the activities to help them analyze diction, imagery, figures ofspeech, sound devices, and structure in Sonnet 18. Teachers will find a variety of strategies

embedded in the lesson, ranging from a graphic organizer, to paraphrasing, to frame statements

for an analytical paragraph. Because students often find poetry intimidating, teachers should beprepared to model the exercises in the initial activities, perhaps in a whole-class setting. As they

become more confident with the poems form andlanguage, students may complete the activities

independently.

Answers

Many of the answers for this lesson are subjective and will vary. However, answers to objective

questions are provided below. To obtain the maximum benefit of the lesson, ask students to gobeyond the expected responses.

Quatrain 1:

1. summer2. The speaker compares a beautiful summer day to his lover

4. temperate: calm; self-restrained, neither too hot or cold

5. darling: very dear or beloved7. Suggested paraphrase: The speaker asks the question whether he should compare his love to a

summer day. He says that she is lovelier and more constant. Summer has rough winds that


6/13



shake the beautiful and beloved early blooms of May. The time period of summer is too short.The speaker must view summer as a pleasant time, but considers it too short.

Quatrain 2:

8. The eye is the sun watching from the sky.9. The antecedent of the pronoun his in line 6 is the sun.

12. Suggested paraphrase of line 7:Fair could refer to the weather to mean clear and sunny; it

could refer to his love as attractive and beautiful as well as just and honest.14. Suggested paraphrase: At times the sun is too hot or the weather gets cloudy. Everything

beautiful, a person or a day, will at some point lose its beauty and change for the worst

whether the change is caused by misfortune, fate, or unbalanced events.

Quatrain 3

15. The word but signals a shift in the poem. The focus now shifts from the summer day tohis love.

17. Death is described as bragging, like a person.

18. The shade is the shadow of death. The Psalmist refers to walking through the valley of the

shadow of death.

19. Lines might refer to age lines in the face. It could also refer to lines of poetry. The poetrylines are the most relevant because the speaker is declaring his love in the sonnet.

20. Suggested paraphrase: But your youth will not fade away, nor will you lose the beauty that

you possess. Death will not claim you for his own. You and the memory of you will never diebecause in my lasting poetry you will live forever.

Couplet21. Suggested paraphrase:As long as the human race exists, this poem will live on and make you

immortal; you will live on each time a person reads this poem.

24: Suggested answer for frame statement:

In Sonnet 18, William Shakespeare illustrates(title) (authors name) (reveals, explores, illustrates, etc. marker verbs)

the eternal nature of loveand how it can be preserved through a work of art.(key aspect of the theme) (What does the poem show us on a universal level?)


7/13

Engl ish


Understanding Shakespeare: Sonnet 18Foundation LessonHigh School

Prereading Activity

1. Imagine the perfect summer day. It is early summer with just the perfect mix of comfortabletemperature and weather. List the details about that perfect day on the chart that follows. Fill

in the chart with images that appeal to the different senses.

Sight

Touch

Taste

Smell

Hearing

2. Write a general statement about the overall feeling created by this perfect day.

______________________________________________________________________________

______________________________________________________________________________

______________________________________________________________________________

3. Now think of a person you care about. How are this perfect summer day and this person alike?

How are they different?______________________________________________________________________________

______________________________________________________________________________

______________________________________________________________________________


8/13

Student Act iv i tyUnderstanding Shakespeare: Sonnet 18


Sonnet 18 Analysis

Read the poem aloud. Work through the questions and activities that follow.

Sonnet 18

Shall I compare thee to a summers day?

Thou art more lovely and more temperate:Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,And summers lease hath all too short a date;

Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines, 5

And often is his gold complexion dimmed;And every fair from fair sometime declines,

By chance or natures changing course untrimmed.

But thy eternal summer shall not fade,

Nor lose possession of that fair thou owst; 10

Nor shall death brag thou wanderst in his shade,When in eternal lines to time thou growst:

So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,

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

Quatrain 1line 1 Shall I compare thee to a summers day?

2 Thou art more lovely and more temperate:

3 Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,4 And summers lease hath all too short a date;

1. What season of the year is dealt with in this sonnet?

2. The quatrain contains an analogy that compares

to .

3. Based on images from your prereading chart, explain why this is an effective comparison.

4. What is the denotation of temperate in line 2? How is this word appropriate to describe both a

day in summer and a person?

5. What is the denotation of darling (line 3) in this context?

6. Explain the metaphor in line 4, summers lease.


9/13



7. Paraphrase the first quatrain.

Quatrain 2line 5 Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,

6 And often is his gold complexion dimmed;7 And every fair from fair sometime declines,

8 By chance or natures changing course untrimmed.

8. In line 5, what is the eye of heaven?

9. What is the antecedent of the pronoun his in line 6?

10. How could the eye of heaven be dimmed?

11. How is the sun further personified in line 6?

12. Explain two possible meanings of the word fair in line 7.

13. For each meaning you identified, explain how something that is fair might decline.

14. Paraphrase the second quatrain.


10/13



Quatrain 3line 9 But thy eternal summer shall not fade,

10 Nor lose possession of that fair thou owst;

11 Nor shall Death brag thou wanderst in his shade,

12 When in eternal lines to time thou growst:

15. What word signals a shift in the poem?

What word in line 1 is directly related to the word thy in line 9?

16. The speaker states that thy eternal summer shall not fade. Explain this metaphor.

17. How is Death personified in line 11?

18. Explain the Biblical allusion in line 11.

19. What are possible meanings for the word lines in line 12? Which meaning is most relevant?

Explain.

20. Paraphrase the 3rd

quatrain.

Final Coupletline 13 So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,

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

21. Paraphrase the final couplet.

22. What does the final couplet reveal about the power of a literary work?


11/13



The themeof a work, in this case a poem, is its implied view of life and human nature. It is the

generalization about life at large that the piece leads the reader to see.

23. Fill in the following frame statement for theme.

In ,(title) (author)

(reveals, explores, illustrates, shows, etc. marker verbs) (key aspect of the theme)

and how it .

(What does it show us on a universal level?)

Graphing a Sonnet

Use the sonnet graph on the next page to chart the form of Sonnet 18.

Writing ActivitiesReview the following definitions:

Rhythmis the varying speed, intensity, elevation, pitch, loudness, and expressiveness of speech.

Meteris the measured, patterned arrangement of syllables, according to stress and length in a

poem. For example, the most common meter in English verse is the iamb, an unstressedsyllable followed by a stressed syllable. An iamb is a two-syllable foot.

A sonnetis a poem of 14 lines following one of several set rhyme schemes. The two basicclassical sonnet types are the Italian (Petrarchan) and the English (Shakespearean). The

Italian (Petrarchan) form is marked by its division into the octave and the sestet. Therhyme scheme is abbaabba cdecde(or cdcdcd or some other variation of two or three

rhymes). The English (Shakespearean) sonnet is divided into 3 quatrains and a rhymedcouplet. The rhyme scheme is abab cdcd efef gg. The meter is commonly iambic

pentameter (5 iambs, which is ten syllables, per line).

Writing an Analytical Paragraph: Write a paragraph in which you explain how Shakespeares use

of imagery suggests his attitude about the enduring power of poetry.

Writing a Sonnet: The theme of a sonnet is usually related to an elevated, abstract idea such as

love, devotion, patriotism, honor, fidelity, etc. Choose such an idea and write an original sonnet,

following one of the patterns identified above (Italian or English). Use the second graph to helporganize the meter and rhyme.


12/13



Graphing the SonnetWrite one syllable in each of the boxes to show the iambic pentameter of each line .In the last

box, place the rhyme scheme letter for each of the lines.

Line # RhymeLetter

1 Shall I compare thee to a summers day? a

2 Thou art more lovely and more tem- per- ate: b

3 Rough winds a

4 b

5 c

6 d

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14


13/13



Graphing the SonnetWrite one syllable in each of the boxes to show the iambic pentameter of each line .In the last

box, place the rhyme scheme letter for each of the lines.

Line # RhymeLetter

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

Documents

Understanding Shakespeare Sonnet 18