VWO 5 Literature class 9

• Engels
• Middelbare school
• vwo
• Leerjaar 5

VWO 5 - Literature (class 9)

VWO 4 - Unit 3 lesson 1 (a)

Today

Class work

Discussion Shakespeare's sonnets

Individually 

Study for test 

Make sure you have a laptop or ipad in front of you, and take the website englishliteraturevwo5.weebly.com in front of you! 

Goals

• I know what a Shakespearean sonnet is.
• I can analyse two of Shakespeare's sonnets in detail.

Sonnet 18

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 dimmed,

7     And every fair from fair sometime declines,

8     By chance or nature's changing course untrimmed;

9     But thy eternal summer shall not fade

10     Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st,

11     Nor shall death brag thou wander'st in his shade

12     When in eternal lines to time thou grow'st.

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

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

1. line 1: rhetorical question --> he does this anyway; even though he believes his love is more beautiful than a summer's day 

2. In general, a summer's day is seen as something beautiful, so to compare your loved one with this and even saying she's better is a huge compliment. 

3. rough winds, it doesn't last long, it is sometimes too warm, there are often clouds in front of the sun 

Sonnet 18

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 dimmed,

7     And every fair from fair sometime declines,

8     By chance or nature's changing course untrimmed;

9     But thy eternal summer shall not fade

10     Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st,

11     Nor shall death brag thou wander'st in his shade

12     When in eternal lines to time thou grow'st.

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

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

4. the 'eye of heaven' in line 5 is the sun

5. 'his' in line 6 again refers to the sun

6. We all grow older with time, something we cannot do anything about. (Perceived) beauty therefore grows old and wrinkly. That is nature’s course.

7. That no matter how beautiful something is, everything comes to an end – and will lose it beauty (as mentioned in 6). 

Sonnet 18

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 dimmed,

7     And every fair from fair sometime declines,

8     By chance or nature's changing course untrimmed;

9     But thy eternal summer shall not fade

10     Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st,

11     Nor shall death brag thou wander'st in his shade

12     When in eternal lines to time thou grow'st.

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

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

8. In line 9 Shakespeare starts to talk about his loved one, instead of about things you can find in nature

9. Line 7 states that beauty won’t be forever. Line 10, however, suggests that the loved one will not lose their beauty. 

10. in line 3: the winds shake 

in line 11: death brags

11. 'this' refers to the sonnet itself

Personification: the attribution of a personal nature or human characteristics to something non-human, or the representation of an abstract quality in human form.

Sonnet 18

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 dimmed,

7     And every fair from fair sometime declines,

8     By chance or nature's changing course untrimmed;

9     But thy eternal summer shall not fade

10     Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st,

11     Nor shall death brag thou wander'st in his shade

12     When in eternal lines to time thou grow'st.

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

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

12. The couplet states that the described loved one will forever stay beautiful because of the description in this sonnet. 

13. Otherwise the meter would be off, there would be a missing syllable (to make it iambic pentameter) 

What to do? 

1. Read and answer questions about Shakespeare's sonnets 

2. Make sure you watch the videos from the website

Finished?

Study for test 

Class today

William Shakespeare's sonnets

Next class

• Overview of what to study
• Time to study

Have a nice weekend!