| Figurative Language | Main Themes | Basics | Mystery | Challenge Questions |
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Personification/Assonance/Alliteration
What type of figurative language is used?:
"But came the tide, and made my pains his prey." |
love
The couplet suggests that ________ will not fade away like other mortal things on earth.
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The author (Spenser)
Who is the speaker of this poem?
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Sonnet 18
This sonnet is similar to which of Shakespeare's sonnets?
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Personification
What type of figurative language is used?:
"Came the waves and washed it away" |
writing them in verse (in sonnet form).
"My verse your virtues rare shall eternize"
The poet believes that his love's unique and priceless virtues can be sustained by ___________.
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The speaker's lover (Elizabeth Boyle)
Who is the audience for this poem?
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abab-bcbc
What is the rhyme scheme of the first two quatrains?
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They are representative of the nature which destroys things with the passing of time.
"One day I wrote her name upon the strand, But came the waves and washed it away: Again I wrote it with a second hand, But came the tide, and made my pains his prey."
What do the waves symbolize?
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it is impossible for a mortal to live forever due to the harsh reality of time.
"A mortal thing so to immortalize, For I myself shall like to this decay, And eek my name be wiped out likewise."
Spenser's attempts to literally and physically immortalize the love of his wife are in vain because ___________.
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*PLOT TWIST* Neither! This is a Spenserian sonnet.
Does this sonnet follow Shakespearean rhyme scheme or Petrarchan rhyme scheme?
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Full of new hope and realization
"Not so (quoth I), let baser things devise To die in dust, but you shall live by fame"
Describe the tone of the third quatrain.
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abab-bcbc-cdcd-ee
What is the rhyme scheme of the entire sonnet?
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Close to the tomb of Geoffrey Chaucer, writer of the Canterbury Tales, at Westminster Abbey
To which other famous writer was Spenser buried near after he died?
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"waves and washed"/"pains his prey"/"love shall live"
These are examples of alliteration, where words begin the same consonant sound (This allows for a smooth flow of lines that accentuate the theme of the poem)
Find a phrase in the poem similar to the following:
"die in dust" "verse your virtues" |
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First quatrain: Determined (Spenser is determined for his love's name to survive against the waves)
Second quatrain: Reality (The woman is stating the truth of not being able to immortalize mortal things)
How does the tone of the first quatrain differ from that of the second?
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