Sonnet:  #18 "Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer's Day"  #73 "That Time of Year Thou Mayest in Me Behold"  Courting sonnet from Romeo and Juliet Soliloquy: "Tomorrow, Tomorrow, and Tomorrow" from Mecbeth Tragedies, Comedies, Histories Relevant Links: Shakespeare&               Renaissance

"Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer's Day"
E-Text; Reading; Song by Brian Ferry; another reading by Michael Sheen
 Questions for Group Discussion and Journal

1. This poem is an extended comparison between the speaker's lover and a summer's day. According to the first two lines, how is the speaker's lover UNLIKE a summer's day?
2. Lines three through eight point out a number of negative characteristics of summer. Identify them.
3. Lines nine through fourteen offer a view of the lover's many contrasts with nature. How is she better than a summer's day?
4. What will keep her young forever? What does this poem suggest about the value of art?
5. Identify the metaphors, personification, and hyperbole in this sonnet. 
6. Try to feel and describe the effects pf spondaic (double stress) rhythm in line 3, as opposed to the predominantly iambic rhythm in other lines, esp. ll. 4, 7-8 and 13-14..

"That Time of Year Thou Mayest in Me Behold"
E-Text--1. plain, 2.  with visualization of the poem; Reading

2. metaphor and imagery

• metaphors
1. In the first quatrain, what season of the year does the speaker compare himself to? Is the speaker old or young? How does the speaker feel about growing old?
2. In the second quatrain, what time of the day does the speaker compare himself to? How is he like twilight? How is night like "death's second self"?
3. In the third quatrain the speaker compares himself to the dying of a fire. How is his old age like a "glowing fire"?
4. In the final couplet the speaker again addesses "thou."  Who is he talking to? What is their relationship? What does he think will be the result of the listener's "perceiving" that his life is nearing its end?

As you may have found out, what the listener sees in the speaker is aging and the coming death, which is compared to autumn, sunset and dying fire respectively in the three quartrains.  Around each of these metaphors, again, images and metaphors cluster.
• clusters of metaphors & images
1. In each set of images/metaphors, some worth close analysis. How is "Bare ruined choirs"(l. 4) related to autumn trees?  What does "Death's second self" (l. 8) refer to?  Why does fire lie "on the ashes of his youth" (l. 10)? 
2. Is there anything common among these three sets of images?  (Are there any common images of, say, light or heat in the poem?  Do the images remind us of the past youth, or suggest death, or both?) 

Do the metaphors of aging--i.e., autumn, sunset and dying fire--suggest any kind of development (clue: in terms of the length of the three phenomena)? 

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1. This brief excerpt from the play is a poem by itself. What is the form of this poem? Notice that Romeo speaks the first quatrain, Juliet the second, and they alternate lines in the final six lines.
2. In the first quatrain Romeo uses religious imagery when describing his relationship to Juliet. Romeo thinks that his hands may have treated Juliet too roughly, so what does he offer to do?
3. In the second quatrain Juliet continues the religious imagery. How does she respond to Romeo's offer? What would she rather do?
4. In line 101 Romeo repeats his offer, and in the following line Juliet again politely and teasingly rejects his offer. How does Romeo a third time try to persuade Juliet to kiss him?
5. What decision do the two lovers make in the final couplet?  Why does Juliet say "You kiss by th'book"?

• Application and Wild Association

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Questions for Group Discussion and Journal: 

1. This short speech by Macbeth takes place at the point in the play when he has just learned that his wife is dead. He presents a pessimistic view of life and living. Does he, like the speaker in "To His Coy Mistress," present a carpe diem view of each day? If not, how does he feel about the passage of time? For Macbeth the passage of time only leads to what?
2. Lines 25 and following use a variety of figures of speech. What does Macbeth compare life to in those metaphors?
3. hen Macbeth describes life as being "a tale / Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury / Signifying nothing," what does he mean? Explain this metaphor.

Readings in Context: We need to read the whole play to understand why for Macbeth life is emptied of significance.  It suffices now to know what before Act five, Macbeth has gone through a rise to power and then a serious downfall, during which he commits one murder after another and goes through some psychological struggles, too.  In other words, his life is an eventful one, but why is it "a tale told by an idiot"?  This is a question for you to keep in mind, but not  to answer now. 

The first Globe Theatre was built in 1599, during the Elizabethan age.  The center of the circular theater was open to the sky.  The stage's roof was painted with stars and supported by two brightly colored pillars.  When the silk flag flew over the 30-foot-high walls of the theatre, the townpeople knew to head for the ferries.  It was time of a play such as one of William Shakespeare's.  Since there were no reserved seats, the crowds arrived long before the opening scenes.  They paid their pennies and elbowed their way up to the stage to see the fierce witches of Macbeth or the tragic lovers in Romeo and Juliet.  The English theatres of Shakespeare's time did not use curtains.  At the end of a scene, the "dead bodies" would just be carried offstage.  (The World of Theater  New York: Scholastic 1993: pp 16-17..) 
 
 

  Overviews and Biographies
• Bio, with images & an Approximate Chronology of Shakespeare's Plays 
• Bio from Poetry Archive

 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

  Sites for Fun & Visual Stuffs

• Shakespeare Illustrated, a work in progress, explores nineteenth-century paintings, criticism and productions of Shakespeare's plays and their influences on one another. (from Emory U.) 
• Shakey's Place: The 3D Globe Theatre Internet Experience including introduction and links to Shakespeare's plays and sonnets; both informative and (visually) entertaining!
• Shakespeare Movies (Searchable database)
• Shakespeare Web--an interactive, hypermedia environment dedicated to the enjoyment of Shakespeare's works. 
• SHAKESPEAREAN LIGHTHOUSE GREETINGS--To create a North Carolina Shakespearean Outer Banks Lighthouse greeting for a friend or yer pirate sweetheart or somebody, fill in all the required  information, select a lighthouse, choose one of Shakespeare's sonnets, and press the "Ship Great Thoughts Greeting" button at the very bottom of this page.  (Free of charge.)

 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

  Shakespeare's Sonnet & Sonnet in General

• Sonnet 18  ("Shall I Compare Thee"): Brief Introduction
• Sonnet 74 (That Time of Year"): Brief Introduction
• Shakespeare's Sonnets
• E-Texts (offered by wiretap.spies.com): Poetry, including Sonnets
• Sonnet Central, an archive of English sonnet E-Text (some audio), commentary,  pictures, and relevant web links. Sonnets are grouped by British periods and sonnet from elsewhere (Australia, New Zealand, the U.S.); can also be accessed quickly via an alphabetical list of authors

  Shakespeare's Plays
The Elizabethan Stage, Rose Theatre reconstructed Shakespeare: Court, Crowd and Playhouse p. 69.
Romeo and Juliet
for advanced studies: online texts of the two quarto and the one folio versions of the play 
Mecbeth
• The Mecbeth Site--an interactive site devoted to the play, with many interesting pages offering audio and visual materials
• Shakespeare and His Theatre
• Synopsis: detailed act-by-act synopsis of some of Shakespeare's plays
• E-Texts (offered by wiretap.spies.com): Comedies, Histories, Tragedies 
• Performance and Analysis
• Production History: a listing of the plays (with photos) performed at the Colorado Shakespeare Festival
• the Shakespeare Theatre site (Washington, DC)
• The Illinois Shakespeare Festival

For Further Studies:
• Untitled Essay on Love in lyric poems from the Middle Age and the Renaissance period in England

•  Important Gateways to Shakespeare Studies:
• Shakespeare on the Internet: Sites of Interest (offered by The Internet Shakespeare Homepage, constructed by U of Victoria)
• Mr. William Shakespeare and the Internet: an annotated guide to Shakespeare resources available on Internet, including Criticism, Educational, etc. 
• Yahoo Shakespeare Page

 
• Major Shakespeare Homepage
 
• The Internet Shakespeare Homepage including:
• The Internet Shakespeare Editions: under construction
• The Foyer: This section of the site collects all materials that deal with the overall structure of the Editions.
• The Library: under construction
• The Annex: The Annex makes available various materials in a more informal format: drafts, discussions, and  non-refereed texts that will nonetheless be useful to Shakespeare scholars.
• The Oxford Society page: the oldest continuously operating organization involved in the two-centuries old Shakespeare authorship debate.
• The Richard III and Yorkist History ServerThis site is devoted  to the study of King Richard III, last of the medieval English kings the Wars of the Roses, a dynastic struggle in the later middle ages that pitted Yorkist against Lancastrian fifteenth-century England and its culture the reputation of Richard III in history, literature, and drama, especiallyShakespeare. 
 
E- Texts
• The Complete Works of William Shakespeare constructed by Jeremy Hylton
Criticism
• The Shakespeare Magazine

General Introduction: Literature
• THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY Dates; Topics--Humanism, Reformation, Nationalism, Patronage system, Censorship, ELIZABETHAN AESTHETICS (from Fu Jen English Literature Databank; by Dr. Marguerite Connor) 
• 16th-Century Renaissance English Literauture from Luminarium
• Elizabethan England--including Historical Figures and Events,  Everyday Life, Arts and Architecture,  Shakespeare and His Theatre, and Links to Other Sources 
• Virtual Renaissance  an interesting site with an Old Renaissance Clickable Map as well as fictional characters introducing different places on the map.

General Introduction: History & Culture
• Sixteenth Century Renaissance English Literature: Background Information from Luminarium
• Electric Renaissance Timelines (Boise State University)
• Medieval & Renaissance History

 

 
 
 
 
 

  Sites for Fun & Visual Resoucces

• Monarchs of England - including Monarches of Britain in history, King Arthur and recent ones, from Britannia Internet Magazine
• Image Gallery: an incredibly fun Renaissance image gallery.
• The Elizabethan Costuming Page--should be great for those who want to put a Renaissance play on stage. 

 

 
 
 

Further Studies

• Characters of Shakespear's Plays (1817)  William Hazlitt
• Renaissance (Voice of the Shuttle)
• Articles on the Middle Ages and Renaissance
• Renaissance and Seventeenth Century
• Renaissance British Literature: An Image-Oriented Introduction to Backgrounds for English Renaissance Literature

        Internet-Assisted Course page