Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Sonnet 73 Ready
Sonnet 73 Ready
Aseel Nassar
Target students: third year students ( English major students).
Duration: 2 classes (60 minutes for each class).
The lesson plan: (warm up, analyzing, vocabulary , language and
writing)
Period 1
Step 1: Asking these questions: )opining questions)
1- What is a sonnet ? The word sonnet comes from the Italian
sonnetto, which means little song. Sonnets are 14-line poems,
traditionally about love, that follow particular rhythm and rhyme
schemes. Sonnets can take several forms. Shakespeare used the
Elizabethan form, which consists of three quatrains followed by a
couplet. Each quatrain is four lines. The couplet is rhyming lines at the
end of the sonnet. Because this form uses each rhyme only once, it
allows the poet more versatility.
Step 2: Introduction : The poem is full of images, like the fall , a day,
and a dying fire all of them are coming to an end. The beginning of each fourline unit (called a quatrain) and in the couplet (the last two rhyming lines) they
give emphasis to his theme.
Key Vocabulary
1. thou (pron.) you
2. mayst (v.) may
3. behold (v.) see
4. ere (prep.) before
5. by and by (adv.) over time
6. doth (v.) does, do
7. expire (v.) die
8. consumed (v.) used up
9. nourishd (v.) fed
10. whereon (adv.) on which
(Analyzing)
That time of year thou mayst in me behold
When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang
Upon those boughs which shake against the cold,
Bare ruin'd choirs, where late the sweet birds sang.
In this quatrain, the speaker who is trying to break it gently to his beloved
the news that he's going to die, that he's in the last stages of his life and that
the beloved will have to go on alone . In the first lines, the word order is
inverted from what we would say in current English. The word order would go
more like this: "In me, you might behold that time of year when yellow leaves,
or none, or few, do hang upon the boughs." So the speaker is saying you'll see
in me that fall when the leaves are just barely hanging on the trees, or when
the leaves are already blown away by the winter winds. This image is quite
sad, quite lonely. The picture of few leaves hanging and trembling against the
cold, creates the feeling of loneliness
About the choirs," the speaker is saying in that place where there used to be
choirs of birds
all singing in the spring, now there's almost no birds at all. The word "late"
means recently, So now we don't have any sweet birds anymore, and we don't
have any leaves. All these ending images are created .
quatrain number 2
In me thou seest the twilight of such day
As after sunset fadeth in the west,
Which by and by black night doth take away,
Death's second self, that seals up all in rest.
So, after the sun has gone down... "which by-and-by black night take away
its place . The black night will take away twilight. consequently, night is
compared to death death's second self . As the same way that death takes
away someone's life, night closes down the day. The image is that
all of what the speaker has mentioned ( the state toward the end of his
life)
makes love more strong as his lover see him dying. This is very close to
reality because a lot of us feel so much closer to people when we realize
we're going to lose them. Suddenly, we appreciate them more and more. The
last line, refers to this as well: "To love that well,
Period 2 :
Language and vocabulary:
Step 3 : Writing
Task 1: teacher asks students to paraphrase the sonnet
SONNET 73 PARAPHRASE
That time of year thou mayst in me behold In me you can see that time of year
When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang When few yellow leaves or none at all hang
Upon those boughs which shake against the cold, On the branches, shaking against the cold,
Bare ruin'd choirs, where late the sweet birds sang. Bare ruins of church choirs where lately the sweet
birds sang.
In me thou seest the twilight of such day In me you can see only the dim light that remains
As after sunset fadeth in the west, After the sun sets in the west,
Which by and by black night doth take away, Which is soon extinguished by black night,
Death's second self, that seals up all in rest. The image of death that envelops all in rest.
In me thou see'st the glowing of such fire I am like a glowing ember
That on the ashes of his youth doth lie, Lying on the dying flame of my youth,
As the death-bed whereon it must expire, As on the death bed where it must finally expire,
Consum'd with that which it was nourish'd by. Consumed by that which once fed it.
This thou perceivest, which makes thy love more This you sense, and it makes your love more
strong, determined
To love that well which thou must leave ere long. Causing you to love that which you must give up
before long.