Shakespeare’s Sonnets

1. Shakespeare’s Sonnets

2. Who was William Shakespeare? • Everyone must share one fact and no one may repeat a fact! This is worth 10% of your grade. • First person ready to share raise your hand. • Remember! No repeats or you get a zero! • Ready? Go!

3. Figurative Language • Metaphor • Simile • Personification • Hyperbole • Oxymoron • Allusion

4. Examples? • Metaphor – implied (suggested) comparison • Simile – comparison using like, as or than • Personification – giving human qualities to non-human things • Hyperbole – exaggeration • Oxymoron – two contradicting or opposite words brought together to create a new concept or idea • Allusion – a brief and indirect reference to a person, place, thing or idea of historical, cultural, literary or political significance.

5. Sonnets • A Sonnet is a verse form that typically refers to a concept of unattainable love. • A sonnet is a form of LYRIC POETRY – a highly musical verse that expresses the observation & feelings of a single speaker.

6. Theme statements of love • The topic of most sonnets written in Shakespeare's time were a theme statement related to love. • What are some examples of theme statements of love you can think of? Don’t just think of the positive aspects of love.

7. Examples of Theme Statements about Love • Love is acceptance • Love is consistent growth towards a shared future vision with a partner. • Love is fleeting like trying to catch a butterfly. • Being hurt in love takes a lifetime to get over. • There is a difference between love and lust. • If you love someone, you choose them daily. • A heart can break even if it’s just a muscle. • Love and suffering go hand in hand. • True love does not exist except in fairy tales.

8. Where did sonnets begin? • Sonnets were first developed by the Italian poet, & Humanist Francesco Petrarca. • Petrarchan sonnets depict the addressed his love in hyperbole made her a model of perfection and inspiration. • He fell in love at first sight with Laura de Novesand already being married she would turn down all advanced he made toward her. • Petrarch would be haunted by her beauty for the rest of his life.

9. The eyes I spoke about so warmly, and the arms, the hands, the ankles, and the face that left me so divided from myself, and made me different from other men: the crisp hair of pure shining gold and the brightness of the angelic smile, which used to make a paradise on earth, are now a little dust, that feels no thing. And I still live, which I grieve over and disdain, left without the light I loved so much, in great ill-fortune, in a shattered boat. Now make an end of my loving songs: the vein of my accustomed wit is dry, and my lyre is turned again to weeping.

10. 14 lines, ababcdcdefefgg, • Iambic pentameter (which is the rhythm of a heartbeat) • 10 syllables each line (feet) • Stressed and unstressed • 3 quatrains (4 line stanza) • 1 couplet at the end • See Sonnets for Dummies link on my webpage

11. What is Iambic pentameter? • “Iambic pentameter is the rhythm of our English language and of our bodies – a line of that poetry has the same rhythm as our heartbeat. A line of iambic pentameter fills the human lung perfectly, so it’s the rhythm of speech.” --Ben Crystal (Shakespearean actor)

12. Pirates and sonnets • https://ed.ted.com/lessons/why-shakespeare-loved-iambic-pentameter-david-t-freeman-and-gregory-taylor

13. Before we start with Sonnet 130…some vocab for you. • Dun: brownish gray color • Damask: grayish-pink color • Belied: to contradict; to cancel out or to show that something is not real • https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1s2PnG1W1gM

14. 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 damask'd, red and white,But no such roses see I in her cheeks;And in some perfumes there is more delightThan in the breath that from my mistress reeks. I love to hear her speak, yet well I knowThat music hath a far more pleasing sound.I grant I never saw a goddess go:My mistress when she walks treads on the ground. And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rareAs any she belied with false compare.

15. But what does it mean? Now that you know what the words mean, turn into your groups and figure out what he is REALLYsaying. Is he being sarcastic or is he being romantic? Why? Explain!!

17. Honors • Create a Say/Mean/Matter with your groups with your chosen sonnet.

18. Extra credit Write your own sonnet • Write your own sonnet in Shakespearean sonnet format. You will be graded on Sonnet format and creativity.

19. My students wrote these opening stanzas a few years ago… His eyes, to me stand out like heaven’s stars His lips, be soft to kiss a floating cloud His arms hold me, so safe like golden bars Hold me close and make me oh so aroused. I love her like fat boys do love cupcakes I like when she shakes what her mom gave her. With that smile, my heart is what she takes When with her, like batter, my feelings stir. His eyes like choc’late melting in the sun Liquid pools of love to see into mine Cheeks like meat under a hamburger bun. He is edible love and oh so fine.

20. Questions?

21. Just in case… • How about we do a Say/Mean/Matter with the whole class to make sure you know how it works. • TAKE NOTES!!!!

22. Sonnet 18 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 dimm’d; And every fair from fair sometime declines, By chance or nature’s changing course untrimm’d; But thy eternal summer shall not fade Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest; Nor shall Death brag thou wander’st in his shade, When in eternal lines to time thou growest: So long as men can breathe or eyes can see, So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

24. Figurative language – what does it mean??? • Metaphor – comparing her to a summer’s day • Personification – “And summer’s lease hath all too short a date.” • Personification – “hot the eye of heaven” • Personification – “often is his gold complexion dimmed” • Metaphor – “eternal summer” • Personification – “Nor shall death brag” • Metaphor – “So long as men can breathe or eyes can see, So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.”

25. The speaker opens the poem with a question addressed to his beloved: “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?” The next eleven lines are devoted to such a comparisons - she is “more lovely and more temperate.”(pleasant) “Summer” is shaken by “rough winds”; in them, the sun (“the eye of heaven”) often shines “too hot,” or too dim. Summer is fleeting: its date is too short, and it leads to the withering of autumn, as “every fair from fair sometime declines.” The final quatrain of the sonnet tells how his beloved differs from the summer in that respect: her beauty will last forever (“Thy eternal summer shall not fade...”) and never die. In the couplet, the speaker explains how the beloved’s beauty will accomplish this, and not die because it is preserved in the poem, which will last forever; it will live “as long as men can breathe or eyes can see.”

26. The Sonnet Project

27. Part IIntro to Shakespeare • Read and annotate page 170-181 • Group discussions about what it all means • Ask questions and participate in small group and full class discussions (Yes, for your grade. Umm..duh.) • I will be listening to your small groups and awarding points as I walk around to rock-stars and meh-stars • Two quizzes!! (Hmmm…I wonder if Ms. Levine will allow me to use my notes from the power point on those quizzes...)

28. The Sonnet Project Three Part Semester Final – Each part is worth 45% of your grade. Part I – Intro to Shakespearean Drama – 2 quizzes Part II – Say/Mean/Matter of the sonnet (Theme statement!!!) Part III – Memorize and Recite your sonnet Tableau style Extra credit Write your own sonnet in Shakespearean Sonnet Format

29. Part II – Say/Mean/Matter • Each group will receive a Shakespearean Sonnet • Complete an INDIVIDUAL Say/Mean/Matter for the sonnet making your theme statement for the ‘matter’. You must create your own, but you may collaborate with your group on the ideas before you create it. • Add visual metaphors to qualify for a 4

30. Part III – memorize & recite Memorize and recite your poem to the class. Use creative staging, costumes and props to qualify for a 4. What is a TABLEAU? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2YFlp-gVP_U

31. Extra credit Write your own sonnet • Write your own sonnet in Shakespearean sonnet format. You will be graded on Sonnet format and creativity.

32. My students wrote these opening stanzas a few years ago… His eyes, to me stand out like heaven’s stars His lips, be soft to kiss a floating cloud His arms hold me, so safe like golden bars Hold me close and make me oh so aroused. I love her like fat boys do love cupcakes I like when she shakes what her mom gave her. With that smile, my heart is what she takes When with her, like batter, my feelings stir. His eyes like choc’late melting in the sun Liquid pools of love to see into mine Cheeks like meat under a hamburger bun. He is edible love and oh so fine.

33. Questions?

34. Just in case… • How about we do a Say/Mean/Matter with the whole class to make sure you know how it works. • TAKE NOTES!!!!

35. Sonnet 18 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 dimm’d; And every fair from fair sometime declines, By chance or nature’s changing course untrimm’d; But thy eternal summer shall not fade Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest; Nor shall Death brag thou wander’st in his shade, When in eternal lines to time thou growest: So long as men can breathe or eyes can see, So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

37. Say/Mean/Matter

38. Figurative language – what does it mean??? • Metaphor – comparing her to a summer’s day • Personification – “And summer’s lease hath all too short a date.” • Personification – “hot the eye of heaven” • Personification – “often is his gold complexion dimmed” • Metaphor – “eternal summer” • Personification – “Nor shall death brag” • Metaphor – “So long as men can breathe or eyes can see, So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.”

39. The speaker opens the poem with a question addressed to his beloved: “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?” The next eleven lines are devoted to such a comparisons - she is “more lovely and more temperate.”(pleasant) “Summer” is shaken by “rough winds”; in them, the sun (“the eye of heaven”) often shines “too hot,” or too dim. Summer is fleeting: its date is too short, and it leads to the withering of autumn, as “every fair from fair sometime declines.” The final quatrain of the sonnet tells how his beloved differs from the summer in that respect: her beauty will last forever (“Thy eternal summer shall not fade...”) and never die. In the couplet, the speaker explains how the beloved’s beauty will accomplish this, and not die because it is preserved in the poem, which will last forever; it will live “as long as men can breathe or eyes can see.”

40. Let’s do one for practice (20%) • Each group receives a sonnet and creates a Say/Mean/Matter together. No collage needed. • Make sure the SMM is complete and fabulous. • Ask lots of questions • Discuss the sonnet and figure it out. • 20% group grade • Share when you are done