Shakespearean Sonnet Presentations
In groups, assigned by the teacher, you will work to explicate and analyze Shakespearean
sonnets. Groups will have time in class to prepare and will teach the sonnets to the rest of
the class.
Your grade will be based on the quality of your analysis and the clarity of your
presentation. The assignment is worth 40 points and will be included in the “tests and
quizzes” category.
Because every group member will receive a separate score, each person must be equally
involved in the presentation to the class. You will turn in a typed copy of your answers on
the day of your presentation. Answers should be in complete sentences with no
unidentified pronouns.
Group 1 Assignments: Read and analyze Shakespeare’s Sonnet 29.
1. Explicate the sonnet
A. Mark the iambic pentameter
B. Define the quatrains
C. Define the couplets
D. Mark the rhyme scheme
E. Mark (end explain) the volta
2. Each of the first two quatrains expresses a distinct but related thought. In your own
words, what are these two thoughts? Explain.
3. How does the thought expressed in the last two lines of the sonnet relate to what is
said in the first eight lines?
4. Based on its structure, what would you say is the theme of the sonnet? (Remember
that a theme must be stated in a complete sentence as a universal truth.)
Group 2 Assignments: Read and analyze Shakespeare’s Sonnet 29.
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
What experiences have made you feel “wealthy”? Explain.
With whom or what is the speaker in disfavor?
What are three things that the speaker wished for?
How would you describe the mood of the first 8 lines of the sonnet?
What is the mood of the last 6 lines? How does it contrast to the opening lines?
If you were to write a title for this sonnet, what would it be? Be detailed and
creative. Explain.
Group 3 Assignments: Read and analyze Shakespeare’s Sonnet 73.
1. Explicate the sonnet
A. Mark the iambic pentameter
B. Define the quatrains
C. Define the couplets
D. Mark the rhyme scheme
E. Mark (end explain) the volta
2. Many people regret growing old. How do you think the speaker of the sonnet feels
about it? Support your answer with details from the sonnet. Does the organization
of the sonnet contribute to this idea?
3. How does the thought in the final couplet relate to the rest of the sonnet?
Group 4 Assignments: Read and analyze Shakespeare’s Sonnet 73.
1. Do you agree with the speaker’s claim that the nearness of death makes “love more
strong”? Why or why not. Explain.
2. To what season of the year does the speaker compare himself? Why?
3. To what time of day does the speaker compare himself? Why?
4. What comparison does the speaker make in the third quatrain? Why?
5. In the “bare ruined choirs” of line 4, the word choirs refers literally to the loft where
church singers perform. What does it mean as Shakespeare uses it here?
6. Explain the meaning of “death’s second self” in line 8.
Group 5 Assignments: Read and analyze Shakespeare’s Sonnet 116.
1. Explicate the sonnet
A. Mark the iambic pentameter
B. Define the quatrains
C. Define the couplets
D. Mark the rhyme scheme
E. Mark (end explain) the volta
2. Ordinarily, the final couplet of a sonnet offers a summary or solution. This final
couplet is a bit different. What point does it make about the content of the rest of the
sonnet?
3. What is your opinion of the speaker’s concept of true love?
Group 6 Assignments: Read and analyze Shakespeare’s Sonnet 116.
1. Besides true love, what other human qualities it ideals might be considered
unalterable? Explain.
2. According to the speaker, what are three things that love is not?
3. To what is love compared in the second quatrain?
4. What are the points of similarity between true love and the North Star?
5. The speaker notes that “Love’s not time’s fool.” (a) What does he mean? (b) How
does this idea fit with the central theme of the sonnet?
Group 7 Assignments: Read and analyze Shakespeare’s Sonnet 130.
1. Explicate the sonnet
A. Mark the iambic pentameter
B. Define the quatrains
C. Define the couplets
D. Mark the rhyme scheme
E. Mark (end explain) the volta
2. Sonnet 130 is often called an anti-Petrarchan sonnet. What do you think is meant by
anti-Petrarchan?
Group 8 Assignments: Read and analyze Shakespeare’s Sonnet 130.
1. Do you find Sonnet 130 to be humorous? Why or why not?
2. What is less than perfect about the mistress’s (a) lips? (b) cheeks? (c) breath?
(d) voice? Explain each in detail.
3. There seem to be indications even before the final couplet that the speaker loves his
mistress in spite of her imperfections. What words or phrases indicate this?
4. Choose one simile and one metaphor from the sonnet. Decide why Shakespeare
might have used it explain the comparison.
SONNET 29
When, in disgrace with fortune and men's eyes,
I all alone beweep my outcast state,
And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries,
And look upon myself and curse my fate, Wishing me like to one more rich in hope, Featured like him, like him with friends possess'd,
Desiring this man's art and that man's scope, With what I most enjoy contented least; Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising,
Haply I think on thee, and then my state, Like to the lark at break of day arising From sullen earth, sings hymns at heaven's gate;
For thy sweet love remember'd such wealth brings
That then I scorn to change my state with kings. SONNET 73
That time of year thou mayst in me behold When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang Upon those boughs which shake against the cold, Bare ruin'd choirs, where late the sweet birds sang. In me thou seest the twilight of such day As after sunset fadeth in the west, Which by and by black night doth take away, Death's second self, that seals up all in rest. In me thou see'st the glowing of such fire That on the ashes of his youth doth lie, As the death-bed whereon it must expire Consumed with that which it was nourish'd by. This thou perceivest, which makes thy love more strong, To love that well which thou must leave ere long. SONNET 116
Let me not to the marriage of true minds Admit impediments. Love is not love Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O no! it is an ever-fixed mark That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.
Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks Within his bending sickle's compass come: Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks, But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error and upon me proved, I never writ, nor no man ever loved. SONNET 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.