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 ow'st;

Nor shall death brag thou wander'st 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.

ANALYSIS

1. Read the first eight lines of the sonnet and identify the two terms of comparison.

2. Now match the following sections in the sonnet with the corresponding lines:

1- A QUESTION

2- THE ANSWER

3- THE JUSTIFICATION TO THE ANSWER

4- A PROMISE

5- THE RESULT OF THE PROMISE

3. Identify the following statements in the sonnet and write the corresponding lines:

- the wind sometimes blows hard

- summer is short

- a summer day can be too hot

- a mist often veils the sun

- beauty fades as time passes

- the beauty of the beloved will not fade

- poetry will give the beloved eternal life

- when the beloved dies he/she won’t be forgotten

4. In the comparison you identified in activity 2, one of the terms proves the better, which one?

Why? (Give reasons)

5. Elements of nature are given human qualities, what is the name of this poetic device?

Give examples:

6. This sonnet can be divided in two parts. Where is the turning point?

7. How do we understand that?

8. The final couplet, as usual in Elizabethan sonnets, ties up the theme of the sonnet. What does “this” refer to in line 14?.

9. Can you now identify the theme of the sonnet and explain it in your own words?