Sonnets Answers

Read Spenser’s "Sonnet 75.”One day I wrote her name upon the strand;But came the waves, and washed it away:Again, I wrote it with a second hand;But came the tide, and made my pains his prey.Vain man, said she, that dost in vain assayA mortal thing so to immortalize;For I myself shall like to this decay,And eke my name be wiped out likewise.Not so, quoth I, let baser things deviseTo die in dust, but you shall live by fame:My verse your virtues rare shall eternize,And in the heavens write your glorious name.Where, when as death shall all the world subdue,Our love shall live, and later life renew.Now read the lines from Shakespeare’s "Sonnet 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 ow’st;Nor shall death brag thou wander’st in his shade,When in eternal lines to time thou grow’st:So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

Which central ideas are present in the sonnet? Select two answers.

Read "Sonnet 14” by Elizabeth Barret Browning.If thou must love me, let it be for noughtExcept for love's sake only. Do not say,"I love her for her smile—her look—her wayOf speaking gently,—for a trick of thoughtThat falls in well with mine, and certes broughtA sense of pleasant ease on such a day”—For these things in themselves, Belovèd, mayBe changed, or change for thee,—and love, so wrought,May be unwrought so. Neither love me forThine own dear pity's wiping my cheeks dry:A creature might forget to weep, who boreThy comfort long, and lose thy love thereby!But love me for love's sake, that evermoreThou mayst love on, through love's eternity.

After identifying unfamiliar words and paraphrasing text, what is the final step to finding the overall central idea of a sonnet?

Study the structure of "Sonnet 14” by Elizabeth Barrett Browning.If thou must love me, let it be for noughtExcept for love's sake only. Do not say,"I love her for her smile—her look—her wayOf speaking gently,—for a trick of thoughtThat falls in well with mine, and certes broughtA sense of pleasant ease on such a day”—For these things in themselves, Belovèd, mayBe changed, or change for thee,—and love, so wrought,May be unwrought so. Neither love me forThine own dear pity's wiping my cheeks dry:A creature might forget to weep, who boreThy comfort long, and lose thy love thereby!But love me for love's sake, that evermoreThou mayst love on, through love's eternity.

Read the lines from Shakespeare’s "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.Now read the lines from Shakespeare’s "Sonnet 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;

Read the lines from Spenser’s "Amoretti LV: So oft as I her beauty do behold."So oft as I her beauty do behold,And therewith do her cruelty compare,I marvel of what substance was the mouldThe which her made at once so cruel-fair.Now read the lines from Shakespeare’s "Sonnet 131."Thou art as tyrannous, so as thou art,As those whose beauties proudly make them cruel;For well thou know’st to my dear doting heartThou art the fairest and most precious jewel.