ENG111 -- Introduction to Literature

Prof. Eileen Joy

Spring 2007

DISCUSSION QUESTION #4 (The Love Sonnet: Shakespeare and Neruda)

Respond to ONE of the following prompts:

1. In Shakespeare's sonnet "Shall I compare thee to a summer's day" (pp. 767-68) and Pablo Neruda's "If some time your breast pauses" (p. 197), both poets write about love, death, and eternity, but in different ways. Comment, however you see fit, on the different depictions of love, death, and eternity in these two poems.

2. How would you compare the way Shakespeare describes his beloved in "My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun" (p. 1164) and how Neruda describes Matilde in "I love the handful of earth you are" (p. 37) and "You are the daughter of the sea" (p. 75)? Which of these three love sonnets do you like the most, and why?

3. Looking at Neruda's sonnets, how would you describe what Matilde was for him (what is she, exactly, to and for him as he describes her in his poetry)? Can you understand how he "sees" Matilde in these poems, and why or why not?

4. **Creative Option**: take a stab at writing a love sonnet yourself, only here's the hitch: it must be fourteen fairly short lines (although rhyming is not necessary and each line does not have to have the exact same number of beats, although ten beats per line is traditional) and it cannot be to or about a person; in other words, it has to be a love poem about anything (material object, animal, abstract idea, place, etc.) other than an actual person. And yes, it's a love poem. Try to play around as much as possible with imagery (language that appeals to all five senses: sight, sound, touch, smell, and taste) and metaphor. Go here for some tips on metaphor.

Please respond to the question with full, complete sentences. You should write one to one-and-a-half typed, double-spaced pages in response to the prompt (but let's not get distracted by these fine points of detail--what matters to me is that you respond to this prompt with thoughtfulness and care and show me that you have something of substance to say in relation to the reading and discussions we have had in class, and what that ultimately means is: MORE is always better than less, but one page is the minimum). The questions are always interpretive in nature, and therefore there are NO right or wrong answers, only your opinion (an opinion, nevertheless, that's hopefully grounded in a close reading of the text as well as a close attention to background material presented in class). You will want to refer to and/or quote specific passages from the text in order to support your observations and ideas (that will help you practice a skill that will become an absolute necessity when you are writing your critical essay).