EN251: British Literature I

Fall 2005

 

Response Paper 6

 

For Thursday, October 27, read the following sonnets by Shakespeare: 29, 30, 31, 33, 35, 55, 60, 65, 71, 73, 80, 86, 87, 93, 94, 104, 106, 107, and 116. All of these sonnets are in the Longman Anthology of British Literature on pp. 1227-1234, except Sonnet 65,which is in the packet of class readings and can also be found here.

For your response paper, write a paraphrase of any one of these sonnets. A paraphrase is a close restatement in prose of the ideas and images of a poem. Be especially careful to make clear the meaning of the images and metaphors in the poem.

For example, here is a paraphrase of Sonnet 12:

 

When I do count the clock that tells the time,
And see the brave day sunk in hideous night,
When I behold the violet past prime,
And sable curls all silvered o'er with white:
When lofty trees I see barren of leaves,
Which erst from heat did canopy the herd
And summer's green all girded up in sheaves
Borne on the bier with white and bristly beard:
Then of thy beauty do I question make
That thou among the wastes of time must go,
Since sweets and beauties do themselves forsake,
And die as fast as they see others grow,
And nothing 'gainst Time's scythe can make defence
Save breed to brave him, when he takes thee hence.

 

When I look at the clock and see that dark, horrible night has overcome brave day; when I see the faded flower of the violet or a head of black hair that has turned gray; when I see branches of trees that not long ago shaded herds of cattle now barren of leaves and the green stalks of grain now harvested and bundled in sheaves, laid out like corpses on a funeral bier, their husks like white, bristly beards; then I wonder if you and your beauty will also be laid waste by time, since such beauties of the world seem to abandon themselves and die as quickly as new beauties are born. When Time the Reaper approaches with his scythe to mow down the crops of life, nothing can defend against him—unless you procreate, and thereby defy him even when he takes you away.