Shakespeare's sonnet 18

William Shakespeare - Sonnet 18

INHOUD
- sonnet 18
- Nederlandse vertaling
- Uitleg van het sonnet

XVIII
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.

Dutch translation:
Zal ik je met een zomerdag vergelijken?
Veel zachter en veel zonniger ben jij.
Te snel weer moet de tijd van zomer wijken;
De wind striemt soms de bloesems al in mei.
Het hemeloog kan soms verblindend zijn,
En dikwijls is zijn schijn van korte duur,
Waardoor de glans van schoonheid weer verdwijnt
Door \'t lot of door de loop van de natuur.
Jouw zomer zal voor eeuwig zomer blijven,
En nooit jouw pracht verloren laten gaan;
De dood zal jou niet in zijn schaduw krijgen,
Wanneer jij in mijn zinnen blijft bestaan.
Zolang er nog iemand leest en leeft,
Zolang leeft ook de zin die leven geeft.
Arie van der Krogt (1997)

1| What is the rhyme scheme of this sonnet? Use letters.
Abab cdcd bebe ff

2| What is the structure of the sonnet?
Line 1 Question
Line 2 – 12 Reasoning, arguments
Line 13 and 14 Explanation, conclusion

3| Mention 3 reasons why summer is not a good thing to compare the other
person (you, thee) with.
Summer is:
1 less beautiful than the person
2 less temperate, more extreme: “Too hot the eye of heaven shines, and
often is his gold complexion dimm’d.”
3 only temporary, it’s beauty will fade, while the beauty of the
person will be eternal.

4| “Fair” or beauty declines at some time. Two reasons are given for this.
Which are these and explain them.
1 By chance or nature’s changing course. Summer will eventually evolve into
autumn and lose it’s splendour, for that’s how nature works.
Death triumphs when one dies, one starts decaying, which is a
process that removes all traces of former beauty.

5| What is meant by “thy eternal summer” in line 9?
The summer of life and the beauty this person has.

6| What is meant by “this” in line 14?
“This” means this poem. Shakespeare has made the person he is talking to
immortal through his writing. As long as men live to read the poem the
person shall not cease to exist; thus gives the poem ‘life’.

7| What is, in one sentence, the message / the idea of this sonnet?
Beauty can be made eternal if one uses poetry, which is eternal.

BRONNEN
>>How do I work out a rhyme scheme?
http://www.learn.co.uk/default.asp?WCI=Unit&WCU=1827

>>What is a sonnet?
http://www.learn.co.uk/default.asp?WCI=Unit&WCU=1836

>>English explanation of the sonnet
http://www.xs4all.nl/~josvg/cits/poem/ws-info.html