Sonnet 104

Question 1

1. What type of poem is this? Give a reason for your answer.

Answer 1

Sonnet, The English sonnet has three quatrains, followed by a final rhyming couplet. It
follows the typical rhyme scheme of the form ABAB CDCD EFEF GG and is composed
in iambic pentameter, a type of poetic metre based on five pairs of metrically
weak/strong syllabic positions.

Question 2

2. If you tell a friend he will never be old to you, what do you mean?

Answer 2

Own answers. Even though time passes, I will feel the same about you.

Question 3

3. Write “when first your eye I eyed” in standard English.

Answer 3

when we first saw each other,

Question 4

4. How do you know this “friend” is beautiful? Find your proof in lines 1-4.

Answer 4

Such is your beauty still – Line 3

Question 5

5. Which four seasons are found in a year and write them in the order they appear.

Answer 5

Autumn
Winter
Spring
Summer

Question 6

6. How many years later does the poet see his friend again?

Answer 6

Three years

Question 7

7. What association does the poet want you to make with the words “fresh” and
   “green”?

Answer 7

The poet still sees his friend as youthful and young.

Question 8

8. In line 9 and 10 the poet compares beauty with what?

Answer 8

To the hands of a clock.

Question 9

9. Why does the poet think his eye is deceived?

Answer 9

To the poet his friend’s beauty seems unchanged.

Question 10

10. What compliment does the poet give his friend in the last two lines?

Answer 10

It doesn’t matter for the author since it is out of his fear; he still views him as the most
beautiful and youthful person who could ever exist. That is why in the last lines (the
couplet) the author actually announces that his friend’s beauty is actually fading with
time and the unborn generation (the reader) should understand that the most beautiful
thing to ever exist is already dead and they will never see the beauty in its perfect form
when it was at the author’s peak and flourishing.