IEB ENGLISH
PRESCRIBED POETRY
INCLUDES:
1. TO ME, FAIR FRIEND, YOU NEVER CAN BE OLD ~ SHAKESPEARE
2. THE SUN RISING ~ DONNE
3. THE DISCARDMENT ~ PATON
4. NAMAQUALAND AFTER RAIN ~ PLOMER
5. TOUCH ~ LEWIN
6. FOR OOM PIET ~ DOWLING
7. THE TENANT ~ NGULUBE
8. COCKROACHES ~ YAMBO
9. STRANGERS FOREVER ~ KASSAM
10. OZYMANDIAS OF EGYPT ~ SHELLEY
11. MOVING THROUGH THE SILENT CROWD ~ SPENDER
12. MIRROR ~ PLATH
13. GO, LOVELY ROSE ~ WALLER
14. WILL IT BE SO AGAIN? ~ LEWIS
15. REMEMBER ~ ROSSETTI
16. NOBODY LOSES ALL THE TIME ~ CUMMINGS
, Title: dedicated to Shakespeare often portrays tim
Shakespeare’s friend, as the biggest enemy of love
subject indicates they
have preserved their SONNET 104 The seasons are an
beauty and can never TO ME, FAIR FRIEND, YOU NEVER CAN BE OLD extended metapho
“be old” BY WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE that resembles the
passing of time whic
(describing how his friend’s beauty will never die) emphasises the
cyclical nature of lif
and death
Stanza 1: 1 To me, fair friend, you never can be old,
Alliteration of “F” (beauty is in the eye of the beholde
sound: meant to slow 2 For as you were when first your eye I eyed,
down the poem and The Winter takes
3 Such seems your beauty still. Three winters cold
enhance the idea of “Summer’ pride” as
beauty. 4 Have from the forests shook three summers’ pride, Winter destroys
everything that was
created during
Repetition of “three”: Summer
5 Three beauteous springs to yellow autumn turned
indicates 3 years of
knowing the person. 6 In process of the seasons have I seen, Metaphor: Friend is
being compared to fresh
7 Three April perfumes in three hot Junes burned,
grass/bloomed flower.
8 Since first I saw you fresh, which yet are green. Green has youthful
connotations. Compared
to natural beauty.
Vulta (turning
9 Ah, yet doth beauty, like a dial-hand, Simile: Compares the process of
point): found in the
rhyming couplet, or 10 Steal from his figure, and no pace perceived; ageing to the process of time
in the sestet)
11 So your sweet hue, which methinks still doth stand,
Personification:
Time is personified 12 Hath motion, and mine eye may be deceived:
for stealing beauty
away.
13 For fear of which, hear this, thou age unbred: The speaker’s doubts are
resolved here and he
14 Ere you were born was beauty’s summer dead. knows his friend’s beauty
(before) will last for an eternity.
(before you were born, summer is dead.)
The main topic or the poem is the cruelty of
time and how it will inevitably destroy the
speaker's "fair friend". His only hope of
immortality is through Shakespeare's poetry,
because therein the beauty will remain forever.
Sonnet: 14 lines, 10 claps per line, rhyming scheme.
2 different types of sonnets:
Shakespearean / Elizabethan: consists of 3 quatrains, 1 rhyming couplet (ABAB CDCD EFEF)
Petrarchan / Italian: consist of an octave (8 lines) followed by a sestet (6 lines), with
a rhyme scheme typically ABBA ABBA
“To me, fair friend, you never can be old” is a Shakespearean sonnet