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Quick-write

What comes to mind when you think about William

Shakespeare?

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William Shakespeare1564-1616

Born in StratfordThe 3rd of 8 kidsMarried at age 18

(Anne Hathaway, his wife, was 26)

Worked as an actorPublished 37 plays: *Comedies*Tragedies*Histories*156 Sonnets (poems)

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Shakespeare’s Sonnets

English 7

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Today we will:1. Become familiar with Shakespeare’s language.2. Identify the characteristics of Shakespeare’s

sonnets.3. Analyze a Shakespearean sonnet.

The Globe Theatre 1599

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The New Globe Theatre 1999

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What is a sonnet?

•A sonnet is a fourteen-line poem in iambic pentameter often about LOVE.

•It usually argues a point or solves a problem.Ex: You must love me because…

Iambic what?

Oh dear, this isgoing to be aweird lesson!

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Iambic Pentameter

•  Iambic Pentameter is the rhythm and metre in which poets and playwrights wrote in Elizabethan England. It is a metre that Shakespeare uses.

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Heartbeat.• Quite simply, it sounds

like this: dee DUM, dee DUM, dee DUM, dee DUM, dee DUM.

• It is the rhythm of the human heart beat.

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Pentameter?

• An ‘iamb’ is ‘dee Dum’ – it is the heart beat.

• Penta is from the Greek for five.• Meter is really the pattern

• So, there are five iambs per line!

• (Iambic penta meter )

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• It is percussive and attractive to the ear and has an effect on the listener's central nervous system. An Example of Pentameter from Shakespeare: but SOFT what LIGHT through YONder WINdow BREAKS

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Syllables

• What is a syllable?

• Well, there are three syllables (separate sounds) in the word syllable!

• I am a pirate with a wooden leg.• How many syllables are there?• Go to the store to buy a loaf of bread.• How many syllables are there?

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Syllables

10 syllables5 stressed and 5 unstressed dee DUM dee DUM dee DUM dee DUM dee DUM

I am a pirate with a wooden leg.

dee DUM dee DUM dee DUM dee DUM dee DUM

Go to the store to buy a loaf of bread.

What is this called again?

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“But soft, what light through yonder window breaks.”

--Romeo and Juliet II, ii.

•At the bottom of your hand-out, identify the stressed and unstressed syllables. (Remember, the first syllable in iambic pentameter is ALWAYS unstressed!)

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dee DUM dee DUM dee DUM dee DUM dee DUM

“But soft, what light through yonder window breaks.--Romeo and Juliet II, ii.

This rhythm is iambic pentameter!

Well done!

Now, turn your hand-out over. Try to write a line of iambic pentameter with your partner.

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Back to sonnets.

• Well, it is a poetic form.

• But it has a certain structure as well as a rhyming pattern.

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Rhyming patterns

• The Shakespearean sonnet has three quatrains followed by a couplet, the scheme being: abab cdcd efef gg.

• More head scratching?

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Quatrain?

• Quatrains are four line stanzas of any kind.• Couplets are two line stanzas of any kind.

• I have divided the following sonnet into the three quatrains.

Can you label the quatrains?(The couplet has been labelled for you.)

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Sonnet 18Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day? (A)Thou art more lovely and more temperate. (B)Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May, (A)And summer’s lease hath all too short a date. (B)Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines, (C)And often is his gold complexion dimmed, (D)And every fair from fair sometime declines, (C)By chance or nature’s changing course untrimmed; (D)But thy eternal summer shall not fade (E)Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st (F)Nor shall death brag thou wander’st in his shade (E)When in eternal lines to time thou grow’st (F)So long as men can breathe or eyes can see, (G)So long lives this, and this gives life to thee. (G)

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Let’s Review…

• 1. What is a sonnet? • 2. How many lines does it have?• 3. What is the rhyming pattern of a

Shakespearean sonnet?• 4. What is the special meter called that was used

by Shakespeare?

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But What Does All This Mean?

Let’s look at the last two lines:

So long as men can breathe or eyes can see, (G)So long lives this, and this gives life to thee. (G)

The last two lines are usually the solution to the problem.

As long as people are alive to read this poem,This poem will keep you alive and beautiful.

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But What Does All This Mean?

With your partner, translate a single line of iambic pentameter into contemporary language.

*Use the definitions under the poem to help you.

TranslationShould I compare you to a summer’s day? You are lovelier than summer and you don’t change. Sometimes summer can be stormy and kill May flowers, And summer doesn’t last very long. Sometimes summer is too hot, And every summer must end, And everything beautiful fades, Because this is the course of nature.But your youth will not fadeAnd you will not lose your beauty.You will always be beautiful Even after you die.As long as people are alive to read this poem,This poem will keep you alive and beautiful.

Questions for Discussion

•What reasons does the speaker give for not comparing his lover to a summer’s day? (Quatrains 1&2)

•What is special about the lover’s beauty? (Quatrain 3)

•In the end, what will keep the lover alive and beautiful? (Couplet)

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Huzzah!Thou hast done it!

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Reflection

What are two (2) things you learned about sonnets today? 

 

What is one (1) question you still have?

THANK YOU FOR LEARNING WITH US TODAY!