SPM REVISION:SONNET 18

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 man can breath, or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee

QUESTIONS:
1. Why does the poet compare his beloved to a summer’s day?
2. Why is his beloved “more lovely” and “more temperate” than a summer’s day?
3. What does the phrase “darling buds” refer to?
4. What will the rough winds do to the “darling buds”?
5. Why is the summer season considered a “lease”?
6. Why does “summer’s lease” have “all too short a date”?
7. What does the phrase “eternal summer” mean?
8. What are the weaknesses of summer?
9. What are the strengths of “eternal summer”?
10. Why does the poet describe the sun as the “eye of heaven”?
11. Why is the “eye of heaven” itself not perfect?
12. What does “his gold complexion dimm’d” refer to?
13. What does line 11 mean : “Nor shall Death brag thou wand’rest in his shade”?
14. “When in eternal lines to time thou grows’t” (line 12). What does this line mean?
15. What does “this” in line 14 refer to?


j.a.m/smkbp/f4/lit