Edmund spencer sonnet 75

One day I wrote her name upon the strand

But came the waves and wash'd it away;

Again I wrote it with a second hand,

But came the tide, and made my pains his prey.

'Vain man', said she, 'that dost in vain assay,

A mortal thing so to immortalise,

For I myself shall like to this decay,

And eke my name be wip'd out likewise'.

'Not so', quod1, 'let baser things devise

To die in dust, but you shall live by fame;

My verse your virtues rare shall eternise,

And in the heavens write your glorious name.

Where whenas'death shall all the world subdue.

Our love shall live, and later life renew'.

1. Was Spenser's reaction what you expected? How was it different?

2. Write down the rhyme scheme of the poem.

3. The poem is a dialogue between...

4. Paraphrase in simple prose the first part of the dialogue. (Lines 5-8)

5. How does the poet disagree with this?

6. What do you consider to be the message of the poem?

7. Do you think this message is still valid today? Are poems eternal? Discuss.

William shakespeare

Find different translations of the given sonnets and analyse them.

Sonnet 18

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day

Thou art more lovely and more temperate:

Rough¹ 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 dimm'd;

And every fair from fair sometimes declines,

By chance, or nature's changing course, untrimm'd,

But thy eternal summer shall not fade,

Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st;

Nor shall Death brag thou wander'sf in his shade,

When in eternal lines to time thou gow'st;

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

So long lives this and this gives life to thee.

1. Read the poem and mark in the stresses and the rhyme scheme.

2. This form is known as the Shakespearean sonnet. What do you think is the effect of this formal choice on the type of logical argument used and the content of the poem?

3. Make a chart contrasting the characteristics of summer and of Shakespeare's mistress.

A summer’s day	Shakespeare's mistress

4. What do you think is Shakespeare's message? Look especially at the last two lines.

William shakespeare Sonnet 130

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 more pleasing sound.

I grant I never saw a goddess go;

My mistress when she walks treads on the ground.

And yet by heav'n I think my love as rare

As any she belied with false compare.

1. What is your first reaction upon reading the poem? Is Shakespeare being cruel, realistic, ironical, tender? Discuss.

2. What creates the effect of an expanding and developing argument

3. Fill in the chart and analyse the appearance of the woman in the sonnet.

Feature	Classical simile/metaphor	Shakespeare’s image
Eyes Lips Breasts Hair Cheeks Breath Speech Way of walking

What is Shakespeare's message? Do people still use the classical images to talk about their loved one?