HOMEWORK P. 139
EX.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.
EX.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.
EX.3
-“Eye of heaven”: represents the sun
-“thy eternal summer”: her beauty of soul
EX.4
-“eye of heaven”: the metaphor – the sun
-“death”: the death of the soul
EX.5
9: “eternal summer” stands for: its eternal beauty
12: “eternal lines” stands for: at different times in his life.
EX.6
1. People 2. Read 3. End 4. Poem 5. Eternal
EX.7
Q1: ABAB Darling buds; Question and explanation of the summer; Introduction: comparison between the mysterious W.H. with a summer’s day
Q2: CDCD eye of heaven; Main clause, and the end of the summer; The characteristics of the summer’s day
Q3: EFEFE They eternal summer EFEFE They eternal summer; “but” introduces a coordinate, Conclusion: the young lover will grow without losing its beauty
Q4: GG Long lives this; The two sentences begin with the seme verse; Conclusion: poetry will make that the young man stays alive
EX.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.
ANALYSIS
just considering only the title I expect the writer to make a comparison between two or more things or people.
is a Shakespearean sonnet and it is organized according to the Shakespearean scheme or between quatrains, which
introduce change of image to tone and a couplet. the rhymhe scheme is abab, cdcd, efef, gg
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.
