Make Comparisons Between Texts: Shakespearean Sonnets

 

When reading Shakespeare, it can be easy to get a little confused with the language used. 

 

It is important to remember that these are just words, and if you know how to look at them, they are words we understand and use today. 

 

In this activity, we will be looking at two of Shakespeare's sonnets and comparing them. You will break down the language, look at the meaning Shakespeare has intended and how these meanings compare. 

 

If you are ready, have a look at the sonnets (remembering not to worry about the language)  and get ready to answer some questions!

 

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.

 

 

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 damasked, 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.