A Quiz on Sonnet 18

Please answer these questions as fast as possible and then check the answers below. Have fun!
1. How many quatrains and couplet are there in this sonnet?

2. What is the rhyme scheme of this sonnet?

3. In this sonnet, the persona has compared his beloved to a..?

4. State one downside of a summer's day.

5. What is the meaning of this line 'Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines'?

6. 'Thy eternal summer' means...

7. Give one example of personification.

8. What is the theme of this sonnet?

9. Explain the meaning of the couplet. 'So long as men can breathe or eyes can see, So long lives this and this gives life to thee'.

10. What have you learned from this sonnet?


Possible answers

1. 3 quatrains and 1 couplet

2. abab cdcd efef gg

3. summer's day

4. A summer's day can be too windy / A summer's day can be too hot / A summer's day can be too short / Sometimes the sun won't come out on a summer's day

5. At times the sun can be too bright making the day too hot.

6. 'Thy eternal summer' means your everlasting beauty.

7. ( i ) the eye of heaven ( ii ) his gold complexion dimm'd ( iii ) Death brag thou wander'st in his shade

8. Love / Nature / Beauty

9. As long as someone reads this sonnet, your beauty will last forever.

10. ( i ) We learn to appreciate nature. ( ii ) We learn to appreciate beauty. ( iii ) We learn that nothing lasts forever.

Sonnet 18 by William Shakespeare (A Short Explanation)

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 owest;
Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou growest:
So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
So long lives this and this gives life to thee.

• This poem is about love and the appreciation of beauty by the persona to his beloved.
• A summer's day is a beautiful day, yet the persona feels that his beloved's beauty surpasses that of a summer's day.
• To him, she is more beautiful.
• A summer's day can be:

- too windy

- too short

- too hot as the sun shines so brightly

- cloudy

• He continues by saying that everything on earth will die and perish, but her beauty will last forever even when she dies.
• She will be immortalised as long as someone reads this sonnet.