Name
Date
SONNET 18
COPY MASTER
Reading Fluency
ORAL RECITATION
You have learned that Shakespearean sonnets have a rhyme scheme of abab cdcd efef gg.
In addition, they are written using iambic pentameter. That is, each unstressed syllable is
followed by a stressed syllable. Use the predictable pattern of rhythm and rhyme to plan how
to read this type of poetry.
Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds to 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 dimmed;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance or nature’s changing course untrimmed;
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.
Copyright by McDougal Littell, a division of Houghton Mifflin Company
SONNET 18 / SONNET XXX OF FATAL
INTERVIEW
A. Directions: Practice reading “Sonnet 18.” For each line, mark the words that receive
stress.
—William Shakespeare
106
Unit 7
Grade 10
Resource Manager