Read the information about Shakespearean sonnets and complete the tasks below.

William Shakespeare is known to be the author of 154 sonnets, a special form of a poem that expresses the author's ideas and thoughts. A sonnet has fourteen lines and is written in iambic pentameter.

Iambic pentameter is a type of poetry structure that refers to the number of weak and stressed syllables in each line.

Shakespearean sonnets have the following rhyming pattern: ABAB CDCD EFEF GG, which means that every second line rhymes with the next one, and the last two lines rhyme with each other.

Complete Shakespeare's Sonnet 18 with the lines below.

Write one letter in each gap.

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?

Thou art more lovely and more temperate.

[ ]

And summer's lease hath all too short a date.

Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,

And often is his gold complexion dimmed;

And every fair from fair sometime declines,

[ ]

But thy eternal summer shall not fade,

Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st,

[ ]

When in eternal lines to Time thou grow'st.

So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,

[ ]

А. By chance, or nature's changing course, untrimmed;

B. Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,

C. So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

D. Nor shall death brag thou wand'rest in his shade,

Choose the sentence that describes the author's idea best.

Tick the correct answer.

• In summer, everything is more beautiful than in winter.
• When somebody dies, they go to heaven.
• You are more beautiful than a summer day.
• The poetry is eternal.