Before He Can See the Sky Trivia Quiz

Answer:

Sonnets are poems, typically written in English, with a particular structure. They have fourteen lines, and have a formal rhyming scheme, with usually ten syllables per line. Sonnets were originally written to reflect on a single topic or idea. They were quite popular during the Renaissance, with most poets other than Shakespeare writing about undying love by a man for a goddess-like woman.

Shakespeare published 154 sonnets in a quarto, or small book, in 1609. He also wrote over six sonnets that are included within his plays. These plays include "Romeo and Juliet", "Henry V" and "Love's Labour's Lost". There is also a partial sonnet in the play "Edward III". His sonnets were not the same as others of the era. Despite following the same fourteen-line structure, he wrote of subjects besides just worshipful love as other poets of the time had done. Besides writing of love, he wrote of topics such as a hatred of women, anger, jealousy, and infidelity.

Of Shakespeare's 154 sonnets published in the quarto, the first 126 are addressed to a young man. Of those, the first seventeen are often called the "Procreation Sonnets" because they are calling upon the young man to find a wife to bear his children. This will pass along his beauty, truth, and strength to the next generation.

Sonnet 14 is a Procreation Sonnet. In Shakespeare's time, astronomy and astrology were used more or less interchangeably to mean telling the future by viewing the stars. The first four lines of this sonnet talk about how people viewed the stars to make predictions about plagues, famines, and harvests.

Lines 5-8 of Sonnet 14 have Shakespeare admitting that he cannot tell the future using the weather. Nor can he predict the fate of kingdoms by looking up at the stars.

The next four lines have Shakespeare speaking of the stars in the young man's eyes instead of up in the sky. He says that he sees truth and beauty co-existing in the young man. In the twelfth line, Shakespeare talks about a "store", or saving truth and beauty for the next generation.

In the final two lines of Sonnet 14, Shakespeare states that he can tell the future (prognosticate), and that if the young man does not have children, his truth and beauty will die out and his family line will not continue.