30/09/2020

SONNET XVIII

Page 139 exercise 1

a. the pronoun “thee” refers to the mysterious W.H.

b. the poet confronts the mysterious W.H: with a summer’s day

c. summer perturbed by rough winds

    summer is too hot

    summer is gold complexion dimmed

    summer’s beauty sometimes declines.

d. it’s “better” because the lover’s beauty will never fade

e. the words that Shakespeare writes for him.

Page 139 exercise 2

a. yes, both in the 2^nd and 3^rd stanzas there are two sentences starting with the same word.

b. the main subject of the two stanzas is the beauty of summer

c. they are connected by semicolons. Indicates that we continue to talk about the same topic but changing sides.

Page 139 exercise 3

• “Eye of heaven”: represents the sun

• “thy eternal summer”: her beauty of soul

Page 139 exercise 4

• “eye of heaven”: the metaphor – the sun

• “death”: the death of the soul

Page 139 exercise 5

• L. 9: “eternal summer” stands for: its eternal beauty

• L.12: “eternal lines” stands for: at different times in his life.

Page 139 exercise 6

1. People

2. Read

3. End

4. Poem

5. Eternal

Page 139 exercise 7

Page 139 exercise 8

The Failure of Gilgamesh.

The story centres on the epic search for eternal life by Gilgamesh, king of Uruk.  Guilty of having rejected the advances of the goddess Ishtar, Gilgamesh together with his comrade in arms Enkidu defeats the fearsome Celestial Bull charged with avenging the shame suffered by the goddess.  The killing of the semi-divine Celestial Bull angers the other gods, who as punishment kill Enkidu.  Terrified by the loss of his comrade-in-arms and by the idea that death seizes him too, Gilgamesh embarks on a long journey in search of Utanapištim, the only survivor of the Great Flood, to steal from him the secret of immortality he had received as a gift from the gods.

After various hardships and adventures Gilgamesh finally finds the old Utanapištim, who informs him that immortality is unattainable in the absence of the will of the gods.  Utanapištim has aged because, along with immortality, the gods had not given him eternal youth.  However, he confides in Gilgamesh that he is looking for a "magic thorny plant" capable of restoring anyone who feeds on it to youth.

So Gilgamesh sets off again in search of the plant, eventually tracking it down in the depths of the abyss.  However, fate is not favourable to him; during the return home a snake steals the magic plant from him, obtaining for himself the gift of shedding skin.  The epilogue of the story describes a desperate Gilgamesh and now aware of the inevitable human mortality.

Textual Analysis: Shall I compare thee… - Sonnet XVIII

From the title we can deduce that the sonnet will have as protagonists two or more things, or people, which are compared with each other by a third person.  

The sonnet is organized according to the Shakespearean scheme, that is, three quatrains and a rhymed couplet.  This is the typical rhyme-scheme of the English sonnet.  

In the first quatrain a comparison is made between a summer day and the mysterious W.H..  Shakespeare says that the mysterious W.H. it is too lovely and temperate to be compared to a summer day, due to its rushing winds and the fact that it ends too soon.  

In the second quatrain we have all the characteristics of a summer day, always seen in a negative version.  

In the third quatrain we have the description of the young boy.  here his beauty is explained, which must never disappear even as he grows up.  

In the rhymed couplet Shakespeare says that: as long as his words live, he will live.  with this Shakespeare he wants to make the reader think that his words are like a kind of immortality of youth.

In this sonnet we can find many metaphors, such as: "eye of heaven" where it speaks of the sun, or "thy eternal summer" where it speaks of the beauty of the soul.  

The message that Shakespeare wants to send is in my opinion that the loved one will always be seen better than everything.