1. Course Title: Poetry
Course Code & NO.: LANE 447
Course Credit Hrs.: 3 weekly
Level: 7th Level Students
The Renaissance
Pt. 1
Shakespeare’s
Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer’s Day?
Instructor: Dr. Noora Al-Malki
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2. This Presentation
• is divided into two sections (Pt. 1 & Pt. 2);
each dealing with a poet who represents the
English Renaissance (late 15th C. to early 17th C.)
• introduces the Renaissance era (cultural and
literary aspects).
• presents a discussion of Shakespeare’s Sonnet
18 & Donne’s “The Good Morrow” and “Death
Be Not Proud”.
Dr. Noora Al-Malki 2012
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3. English Renaissance
- The Renaissance Originated in Italy (14th C.)
-Influences: Greece & Roman Cultures
- European Renaissance artists/authors:
*Dante wrote The Divine Comedy
*Petrarch wrote lyric poetry in the form of sonnets
*Leonardo Da Vinci was a painter, sculptor,
architect, and scientist
-In England: 15 (end of the War of Roses)-17th Cs.
*Philip Sidney wrote the first Elizabethan sonnet
cycle: Astrophel and Stella
*Edmund Spenser wrote a long epic, The Faerie
Queen, in Spenserian stanzas
*Christopher Marlowe popularized pastoral verse
(idealizes the rural life)
- Elizabethan era was the height of English
Renaissance
http://www.wwnorton.com/college/english/nael/16century/welcome.htm
.
http://maxweber.hunter.cuny.edu/pub/eres/MUS105.00_DEFORD/RenaissanceIntro.html
Dr. Noora Al-Malki 2012
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4. English Renaissance
-Humanism: Mankind was believed
capable of earthly perfection.
Time Line -Optimism: the belief that life was
improving for the first time in anyone’s
Press this link memory
-Printing Press
-The emergence of the middle Class
-Nationalism
Dr. Noora Al-Malki 2012
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5. English Renaissance
-Literature (poetry) of the Renaissance
focused topics which relate to religion,
classic antiquity, scholarship and
politics.
-Sonnets also became very popular.
-Other poetic forms that were
popularized were the lyric, the elegy,
the tragedy, and the pastoral.
-Near the close of the English
Renaissance, John Milton composed his
epic Paradise Lost, widely considered
the grandest poem in the language
http://www.online-literature.com/periods/renaissance.php
Dr. Noora Al-Malki 2012
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6. Shakespeare
1564-1616
Elizabethan poet and playwright
38 plays & 154 sonnets
Other Poems
Venus and Adonis
The Rape of Lucrece
The Passionate Pilgrim
The Phoenix and the Turtle
A Lover's Complaint
Dr. Noora Al-Malki 2012
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7. Shakespeare
Sonnet (little song) – (little sound)
Sonneteers (writers of sonnets)
Fixed Form which originated in Europe
(Italy)
Conventions of the English Sonnet
-14 lines,
-4 divisions: three quatrains and a rhymed
couplet at the end.
-The rhyme scheme in a Shakespearean
sonnet is a-b-a-b, c-d-c-d, e-f-e-f, g-g.
-The couplet at the end “is usually a
commentary on the foregoing, an
epigrammatic close”.
Dr. Noora Al-Malki 2012
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8. Shakespeare
Shakespeare's sonnets are a collection of
154 sonnets, dealing with themes such as
the passage of time, love, beauty and
mortality, first published in a 1609 quarto
entitled SHAKE-SPEARES SONNETS.
Dr. Noora Al-Malki 2012
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9. Shakespeare
-154 sonnets (a sonnet cycle)
- Main Figures in the sonnets:
1-Fair Youth (1-126): maybe the Earl of
Southampton or the Earl of Pembroke.
2-Rival poet (78-86): Maybe C. Marlowe or
Chapman
3-The Dark Lady (127-152): is apparently
the speaker’s mistress [black hair and
dusky skin].
-The final two sonnets are allegorical
treatments of Greek epigrams referring to
the "little love-god" Cupid.
Dr. Noora Al-Malki 2012
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10. Shakespeare
Herbert, William
3rd earl of Pembroke
Henry Wriothesley
3rd Earl of Southampton
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11. Shakespeare
Christopher Marlowe
Rival Poet
George Chapman
Rival Poet
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12. Shakespeare
Sonnet 18
Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day? Octave
Thou art more lovely and more temperate: the first 2 quatrains
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer’s lease hath all too short a date: forms the
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines, "proposition," which
And often is his gold complexion dimm’d; describes a problem
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance or nature’s changing course untrimm’d;
Volta {turn} (line But thy eternal summer shall not fade
)9
Signifies the Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest; Sestet
movement from Nor shall Death brag thou wander’st in his shade, The 3rd quatrain
problem to When in eternal lines to time thou growest: A resolution
resolution So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.
Dr. Noora Al-Malki 2012
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13. Shakespeare
Shall I compare you to a day in summer?
You are more beautiful and less harsh:
In summer, there are strong winds that shake the flowers,
Summer is only with us for a short time:
Sometimes the sun is too hot for comfort,
Other times it is cloudy and dull;
All beautiful things eventually lose their attractiveness,
By accident, or through the passing of time, beauty is lost;
Your attractiveness will not be lost, however.
You won’t lose the loveliness that you have,
Even death can’t cast a shadow over your beauty;
Your beauty is recorded in print forever:
For as long as civilization survives,
This poem will keep your memory alive.
Dr. Noora Al-Malki 2012
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14. Shakespeare
- Sonnet 18 is the best known and most well-loved
of all 154 sonnets.
-straightforward in language and message
- Themes:
1-The stability and power of love and its ability to
immortalize the beloved
2-The power of the speaker’s poem to defy time and
last forever, carrying the beauty of the beloved down
to future generations
Dr. Noora Al-Malki 2012
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eaglenoora@yahoo.com

15. ‫‪Almutanabi‬‬
‫واحر قلباه ممن قلبه شبم ومن بجسمي وحالي عنده سقم‬
‫ما لي أكتم حبا قد برى جسدي وتدعي حب سيف الدولة المم‬
‫إن كان يجمعنا حب لغرته فليت أنا بقدر الحب نقتسم‬
‫قد زرته و سيوف الهند مغمدة وقد نظرت إليه و السيوف دم‬
‫على قدر أهل العزم تأتي العزائم‬
‫.... وتأتي على قدر الكرام المكارم‬
‫ك الحمد في الدر الذي لي لفظه‬
‫فإنك معطيه وإني ناظم‬
‫2102 ‪Dr. Noora Al-Malki‬‬
‫51‬
‫‪eaglenoora@yahoo.com‬‬

16. Shakespeare
Short Quiz
1-Title
2-Age + Poet’s biography
3-Structure- form
4-Speaker (persona- Voice)
5-Subject (surface meaning, topic)
6-Theme (deep meaning)
7-Point of view
8-Diction & Figurative language
Dr. Noora Al-Malki 2012
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eaglenoora@yahoo.com

17. Shakespeare
Questions to consider
-The English Renaissance had a great impact on the poetry produced
during the 16th & 17th Cs. Discuss this statement with reference to
Shakespeare and Donne. (400-500 words)
- The Shakespearean sonnet was one of the innovations which
Shakespeare introduced into the literature of the Renaissance era.
Comment on this statement using “Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer’s
Day?” as illustration. (400-500 words)
Dr. Noora Al-Malki 2012
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18. Check out these extra resources
http://faculty.uml.edu/Culturalstudies/Italian_Renaissance/5.htm
/http://www.luminarium.org/renlit
Renaissance Theatre
English Renaissance Drama - Luminarium
Shakespeare's Stage - UVictoria
The Drama and Shakespeare - UVictoria
Ancient Rome and The English Renaissance Theatre - John Price
The Sixteenth Century Court Audience: performers and spectators - Sarah
Carpenter
London's Disreputable South Bank in the 16th and 17th century - Jessica A.
Browner [.doc]
Centre for Research in Early English Drama (REED) - University of Toronto
Dr. Noora Al-Malki 2012
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eaglenoora@yahoo.com