Sonnet Notes

Name: ________________________________

What is a Sonnet?

Shakespearean Sonnet Form

3 Quatrains and a Couplet

Regular Rhyme Scheme

Iambic Pentameter
Shakespeare is the
Original Poet MC

Turn

Name ________________________________

Date ____________

Sonnet 18 by William Shakespeare

Directions: Paraphrase each line of the sonnet on the blanks on the right. Then, answer the questions below.
Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?

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Thou art more lovely and more temperate:

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Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,

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And summer's lease hath all too short a date:

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Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,

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And often is his gold complexion dimm'd;

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And every fair from fair sometime declines,

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

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But thy eternal summer shall not fade

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Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest;

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

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When in eternal lines to time thou growest:

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So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,

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

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1. Why do you think the speaker would compare his love to these images?

2. Where is the turn in the sonnet? What is its logical relationship to what comes before?

3. Are the speakers comparisons expected by the reader? What is unusual about the speakers
comparisons between nature and his love?