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The Sonnets App
Directions: Listen to the poem and read it once before you begin answering questions. The
second time begin noting your observations using the questions below (not necessarily in
order.) See if the Arden notes are helpful, especially for defining unfamiliar words, and
check out the commentary, too. It may help you unlock the poem’s meaning.
Sonnets are 14 line poems. A Shakespearean sonnet consists of three quatrains
(three 4-line stanzas) and a concluding couplet.
You are analyzing sonnet:
18
29
73
116
130
1. Chart the rhyme scheme for a Shakespearean sonnet:
a__
___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___
2. In a sentence or two, summarize or describe the content of each quatrain:
Quatrain 1
Quatrain 2
Quatrain 3
3. Who is the speaker of the poem? Try to describe or identify the speaker. Who is being
addressed? If you cannot identify them, why not? Explain.
4.The sonnet’s couplet (the last two lines) often sums up the the meaning of the sonnet, or
offers a twist in the meaning of the poem, or a moral to teach us something. Explain the
couplet.
5. What poetic devices do you notice?
Figurative language
Example from sonnet/ line number
simile
metaphor
alliteration
imagery
hyperbole (exaggeration)
personification
allusion
Sonnet 130
6. Have fun. Draw a "literal" picture of the mistress. Find scratch paper.
7. Sonnet 130 makes fun of the conventions (sort of cliches) of love poetry. Does it
work? In other words, is it a successful love poem? Explain. A lot.
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8. Pay attention to lines 12 and 13. Which one reads quickly and which one slows
down? Why? How does the arrangement of the words (there's a figure of speech in
one of those lines, too), affect the meaning? Explain.
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9. When you think of the images the speaker uses for the comparisons of his mistress,
why is "by heaven" in line 13 an appropriate choice of words?
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10. Write a new simile for the sonnet: My mistress' (body part) are nothing like (natural
object/nature). The commentary on this about music-hall similes is worth reading. I
love the play on words..."Your lips are like petals. Bicycle pedals.”