Multi-cultural Education

Sonnets

The Sonnets is a collection of poems in sonnet form written by William Shakespeare that deal with such themes as love, beauty, politics, and mortality. They were probably written over a period of several years. The sonnets are constructed from three four-line stanzas (called quatrains) and a final couplet сomposed in iambic pentameter with the rhyme scheme abab cdcd efef gg (this form is now known as the Shakespearean sonnet).

Characters of the Sonnets:

Fair Youth – (1-126), presumably Earl Southampton,Shakespeare’s patron

Rival Poet – (76-96) ,presumably Christopher Marlowe, a poet and playwright

Dark Lady – (127-152), presumably Lady Mary Fitton, a married woman

Sonnets Memo: First published in 1609

Quantity : 154 Sonnets

Themes:love,beauty,politics,mortality

Three four-line stanzas+couplet(two lines)

Rhyme scheme: abab cdcd efef gg

Characters:Fair Youth, Rival Poet,Dark Lady ,

Shakespeare :the Bard,the Swan of Avon,Great Unknown

Sonnet N 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.

Sonnet N 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 damask'd, 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 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 rare

As any she belied with false compare.