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Shakespearean Sonnets

This document contains two Shakespearean sonnets: Sonnet 116 and Sonnet 130. Sonnet 116 describes the speaker's view of true love as everlasting and not changing. Many people read this sonnet at weddings because it expresses the ideal that marriage is founded on love that withstands challenges. Sonnet 130 takes a contrasting view, describing the speaker's mistress in unflattering terms by saying her features do not match typical standards of beauty, but the couplet asserts his love for her is still as genuine as any other.

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98 views2 pages

Shakespearean Sonnets

This document contains two Shakespearean sonnets: Sonnet 116 and Sonnet 130. Sonnet 116 describes the speaker's view of true love as everlasting and not changing. Many people read this sonnet at weddings because it expresses the ideal that marriage is founded on love that withstands challenges. Sonnet 130 takes a contrasting view, describing the speaker's mistress in unflattering terms by saying her features do not match typical standards of beauty, but the couplet asserts his love for her is still as genuine as any other.

Uploaded by

steph
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Name Date Period

SHAKESPEAREAN SONNETS

SONNET 116
Put it in your own words: What does Shakespeare
Let me not to the marriage of true minds believe about love according to this sonnet?
Admit impediments, love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,  Love is not love if it changes.
Or bends with the remover to remove.
O no, it is an ever-fixed mark
 It is everlasting.
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wand'ring bark,
 It cannot be measured.
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.
Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
 It is not a waste of time.
Within his bending sickle's compass come,
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
 Survives through anything.
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.

1. Why do you think many people read this sonnet at their wedding? (give a specific example from the text)
_I think many people read this sonnet at their wedding because they want people to believe that their love is the
strongest of all. “Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks, But bears it out even to the edge of doom ”.
__________________________________________________________________________________________
__ _

2. Where does the speaker define love by what it is not and by what it does not do? ___Shakespeare defines
love by saying it is not something that changes or something that can fizzle out. It also is not a waste of time.
__________________________________________________________________________________________
___________________________

3. What single quality of true love does this sonnet emphasize?


It is everlasting.
SONNET 130
Put it in your own words: How does Shakespeare
My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun, describe his lady in this sonnet?
Coral is far more red, than her lips red,
If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun:  her eyes are ugly
If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head:
I have seen roses damasked, red and white,
 she has very dull coloring
But no such roses see I in her cheeks,
And in some perfumes is there more delight,
 her hair is black and
Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.
I love to hear her speak, yet well I know,
 she’s unhygienic
That music hath a far more pleasing sound:

 she’s no beauty
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.

1. Do you think the speaker’s love is actually as unattractive as he makes her seem? Why?
I believe that the speaker’s love isn’t actually as unattractive as he describes because she doesn’t match any of
the “normal” beauty standards. “My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun,”, sounds like a similar saying “Her
eyes shine brighter than the sun”, this poem is meant to show that women aren’t supposed to be perfect and this
shows a more realistic description.

2. Why is the couplet necessary to keep the sonnet from being misunderstood?
The couplet is necessary to keep the sonnet from being misunderstood because it would seem like he’s just
describing her with insults to present her as severely unattractive. However, the couplet fixes this issue and
instead presents him as honest.

3. Which remarks in this sonnet do you find humorous?


I thought it was funny when he made fun of the color of her breasts because it was very unexpected.

Writing: You are the beloved of the speaker of Sonnet 130. Write a sonnet back in response to his words. You
can describe him, scold him, relay your love to him, etc. Get as close to sonnet form as you can.

Reply to the speaker of Sonnet 130:

Your eyes aren’t exactly lovely, too


They’re no piercing green or blue.
Tomatoes are less red than your face.
Your clothes are even full with mildew
If heads are full, why is yours an empty case
If bald heads are shiny, why is yours dull.
Even on your best days, you smell dirty,
Just like those pigs you insist on eating,
Which is why your arteries are congested.
But who needs working arteries and a heart,
When you’ve got a malfunctioning brain too.
Smell the roses, even if they rot at your touch
Yet true beauty is rare among men,
This is what you prove each day.

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