Literature: Sonnets and Start Romeo and Juliet

• Engels
• Middelbare school
• vwo
• Leerjaar 6

Monday, October 2nd

Programme

- 10 minutes of silent reading

- Literature: Sonnets

- Literature: Romeo and Juliet

- SE Essay: final recap

Read your novel

Shakespeare's sonnets

Read along on page 43 if you'd like

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.

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.

4 sub-groups:

- 3 groups of 4 lines (quatrains)

- 1 group of 2 lines (couplet)

A sonnet consists of 14 lines

Rhyme scheme

A

B

A

B

C

D

C

D

E

F

E

F

G

G

3rd quatrain: 'but'

Iambic pentameter

What is sonnet 18 about?

Het thema is de vergankelijkheid van aardse schoonheid en de eeuwigheid van de poëzie.

Oftewel, een heerlijke zomerse dag gaat over net zoals onze schoonheid afneemt naarmate we ouder worden, maar de geliefde waarvoor Shakespeare dit gedicht schrijft zal altijd blijven bestaan omdat zij is vastgelegd in dit gedicht.

Nog iets wat je ziet in een (Shakespeare) sonnet: iambic pentameter.

Eén regel in een sonnet bestaat uit 10 lettergrepen, verdeelt over 5 stukjes. De nadruk ligt telkens op de 2e lettergreep:

ta - DA / ta - DA / ta - DA/ ta - DA/ ta -DA

shall - I/ com - PARE / thee - TO/ a - SUM / mer's - DAY

Het zou lijken op een hartslag. In het volgende filmpje meer uitleg en een hoorbaar voorbeeld.

So we now know that Shakespeare wrote 37 plays. How many sonnets do you think he wrote?

1. 55
2. 93
3. 154
4. 186

What is sonnet 130 about?

Dit sonnet steekt de draak met conventionele idealen waar een vrouw in Shakespeare's tijd aan zou moeten voldoen. Haar ogen zouden stralen als de zon, haar lippen zouden zo rood zijn als koraal, haar adem ruikt naar parfum.
In dit sonnet zegt Shakespeare dat dit bij zijn geliefde echt niet het geval is. Bij de kwatrijnen zal zij denken dat hij haar beledigd. Hij zegt zelfs dat haar adem stinkt, dat ze stampt en dat hij liever naar muziek luistert dan naar haar stem. Gelukkig maakt hij het in het couplet weer goed: "mijn geliefde is uniek en daarom houd ik van haar".

Romeo and Juliet

Turn to page 45

What do you know about Romeo and Juliet?

Genres of Shakespeare's plays

In a nutshell:

• 37 plays
• 10 tragedies, 10 histories, 17 comedies

1. Tragedy: character is flawed (Look, this is what happens if ...), people die
   
2. History: based on histories of English kings
   
3. Comedy: romantic play, ends well, usually in marriage
   

What is the genre of 'Romeo and Juliet', do you think?

1. Tragedy
2. History
3. Comedy

Romeo and Juliet

• officially classified as a tragedy (a romantic comedy?)
• romance & young love, humour and witty dialogues
• written in the 1590s
• taken from Arthur Brooke's poem 'Tragical Historye of Romeus & Juliet'                                                   Interesting link:
  https://www.bl.uk/collection-items/brookes-romeus-and-juliet
  
• Shakespeare squeezed a 9-month story into a 5-day story and he changed Juliet's age (from 16 to 13). See link for other comparisons.
• Other Shakesperean tragedies: Macbeth, Hamlet, Othello, King Lear. (Read what it says on p. 41/42)
  
• Tragedy = fate & destiny 

Key moments and facts

Act 1 scene 1: The scene is set

Act 1 scene 4: R&J meet for the first time

Act 2 scene 1 (or 2 in many editions): The balcony scene

Act 2 scene 5: R&J get married in secret

Act 3 scene 1: Romeo kills Tybalt

Act 3 scene 5: The unhappy couple are parted

Act 4 scene 1: Dangerous solution

Act 5 scene 1: Romeo finds out Juliet is 'dead' and plans suicide

Act 5 scene 3: Romeo kills Paris, drinks poison. Juliet wakes up, stabs herself to death with Romeo's knife. Montagues & Capulets are reconciled.

04:22-04:26

Listen to Jade's interview and jot down the important themes of the play.

What are some of the important
themes of the play?

Act 1 Scene 5

Watch the play and read the lines in your reader (page 45, from 'Did my heart love till now? ...')

What is this scene about? 

02:05-02:08

Paris

02:09-02:12

Juliet's mother

Literary devices in this scene

• Sonnet (divided among Romeo's and Juliet's lines)
  
• Metaphor ('holy shrine', 'two blushing pilgrims')
• Simile ('As a rich jewel in an Ethiop's ear')
• Soliloquy (a long speech given by the speaker to himself)

SE Essay

Thursday, October 10th

5th hour

Bring your dictionary (Du-En/ En-Du)

4-paragraph structure

Passives & Conditionals

Formal language

Thursday, October 10th: SE Essay

Bring your dictionaries and your novel to class!