1. Shakespeare’s Not So Bad! “Sonnet 18”
Kate Hendrix
Warren East High School
English II

2. You’ll need… A piece of paper A pen or pencil
A dictionary or dictionary.com on your phone
You’ll need…

3. Think about a typical love poem or song
Think about a typical love poem or song. What are some of the images and comparisons that the poet/songwriter uses to describe his/her love? List the details of that sense in a chart that looks like the one below. Fill in the chart with details that appeal to the different senses.
Sense
Details
Sight
Touch (keep it clean)
Taste
Smell
Hearing
Prereading

4. Write a general statement about the overall feeling created by a perfect summer day.
Now think of a person you care about. How are this perfect summer day and this person alike? How are they different? (Remember…think FIGURATIVELY…)
PreReading

5. “Sonnet 18” Analysis
READ THE POEM ALOUD

6. 1 Shall I compare thee to a summer's day
1 Shall I compare thee to a summer's day? 2 Thou art more lovely and more temperate: 3 Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May, 4 And summer's lease hath all too short a date: 5 Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines, 6 And often is his gold complexion dimm'd; 7 And every fair from fair sometime declines, 8 By chance or nature's changing course untrimm'd; 9 But thy eternal summer shall not fade 10 Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest; 11 Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st in his shade, 12 When in eternal lines to time thou growest: 13 So long as men can breathe or eyes can see, 14 So long lives this and this gives life to thee.
Sonnet 18

7. What season of the year is dealt with in this sonnet?
The quatrain contains an analogy that compares ______________ to ___________.
Based on images from your prereading chart, explain why this is an effective comparison in a complete sentence.
What is the denotation of temperate in line 2? How is this word appropriate to describe both a day in summer and a person?
What is the denotation of darling (line 3) in this context?
Explain the metaphor in line 4, “summer’s lease”
Paraphrase the first quatrain.
Quatrain 1 1 Shall I compare thee to a summer's day? 2 Thou art more lovely and more temperate: 3 Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May, 4 And summer's lease hath all too short a date:

8. In line 5, what is “the eye of heaven”?
What is the antecedent of the pronoun his in line 6?
How could “the eye of heaven” be dimmed?
How is the sun further personified in line 6?
Explain two possible meanings of the word fair in line 7.
For each meaning you identified, explain how something that is fair might “decline.”
Paraphrase the second quatrain.
Quatrain 2 5 Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines, 6 And often is his gold complexion dimm'd; 7 And every fair from fair sometime declines, 8 By chance or nature's changing course untrimm'd;

9. What word signals a shift in the poem?
What word in line 1 is directly related to the word thy in line 9?
The speaker states that “thy eternal summer shall not fade.” Explain this metaphor.
How is Death personified in line 11?
Explain the Biblical allusion in line 11.
What are the possible meanings for the word lines in line 12? Which meaning is most relevant? Explain.
Paraphrase the 3rd quatrain.
Quatrain 3 9 But thy eternal summer shall not fade 10 Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest; 11 Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st in his shade, 12 When in eternal lines to time thou growest:

10. Paraphrase the final couplet.
What does the final couplet reveal about the power of a literary work?
Final Couplet 13 So long as men can breathe or eyes can see, 14 So long lives this and this gives life to thee.

11. Theme
The theme of 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.

12. Fill in the above statement for theme.
In ________________(title), William Shakespeare _____________________ (reveals, explores, illustrates, shows, etc.) _______________________ (key aspect of the theme) and how it __________________________ (What does it show us on a universal level?).
Fill in the above statement for theme.