Name:
Hour:
English Renaissance Sonnet Activity
Directions: On a separate sheet of paper, answer the following questions about sonnets and poems from the
English Renaissance period.
1. Look up characteristics:
 Sonnet (252)
 Petrarchan sonnet (252)
 Spenserian sonnet (252)
 Shakespearean sonnet (272)
 Pastoral (264)
2. Edmund Spenser
1. Give 3 facts about him from the biography in the
book.
2. Read Sonnet 35
3. Identify the rhyme scheme
4. Answer the following:
a. In Sonnet 35, what do the speaker’s eyes
desire?
b. Describe the state that desire produces
in him.
c. What is one example of figurative
language?
5. Write a one-sentence summary of what the poem
is about.
3. Sir Philip Sidney
1. Give 3 facts about him from the biography in the
book.
2. Read Sonnet 39
3. Identify the rhyme scheme
4. Answer the following:
a. What benefits does the speaker attribute
to sleep in lines 1-4 of Sonnet 39?
b. What “reward” does he promise sleep in
lines 13-14?
c. Judging from the “reward,” why does he
crave sleep?
5. Write a one-sentence summary of what the poem
is about.
4. Christopher Marlowe
1. Read “The Passionate Shepherd to His Love”
a. What does the speaker ask his love to do
in the first stanza?
b. What kind of future life together does
the speaker envision?
2. How does it illustrate characteristics of a
pastoral? (Make sure to be thorough in your
answer)
3. Complete pages 58 and 53 in the AIO
workbooks
Choose one of the following Shakespeare sonnets and complete the questions.
William Shakespeare
1. Give 3 facts from the biography in the book.
2. Read Sonnet 29
3. Identify the rhyme scheme
4. Answer the following:
a. With whom is the speaker in Sonnet 29 in “disgrace”?
b. What overall effect does this disgrace have on the speaker’s state of mind?
c. According to line 12, what causes the shift in the speaker’s mood?
5. Write a one-sentence summary of what the poem is about.
William Shakespeare
1. Give 3 facts from the biography in the book.
2. Read Sonnet 116.
3. Identify the rhyme scheme.
4. Answer the following:
a. Identify two images that show the effects of time.
b. Compare the effects of time on love with the ideal of love in the poem.
5. Write a one-sentence summary of what the poem is about.