1. ACTIVITAT_B_English_Group_3_C: William Shakespeare's
Shall I Compare Thee To A Summer's Day ?
By William Shakespeare
Exercise 1. Read while listening to the comments. Pay attention to
pronunciation and intonation.
Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer's lease hath all too short a date:
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimm'd;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance or nature's changing course untrimm'd;
But thy eternal summer shall not fade
Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest;
Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou growest:
So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
So long lives this and this gives life to thee
Exercise 2. Read the translation of the poem into Spanish.
¿A un día de verano compararte?
De William Shakespeare
¿A un día de verano compararte?
Más hermosura y suavidad posees.
Tiembla el brote de mayo bajo el viento
y el estío no dura casi nada.
A veces demasiado brilla el ojo
solar y otras su tez de oro se apaga;
toda belleza alguna vez declina,
ajada por la suerte o por el tiempo.
Pero eterno será el verano tuyo.
No perderás la gracia, ni la Muerte
se jactará de ensombrecer tus pasos
cuando crezcas en versos inmortales.
Vivirás mientras alguien vea y sienta
y esto pueda vivir y te dé vida.
Versión de Manuel Mujica Láinez
(http://amediavoz.com/shakespeare.htm)
Exercise 3. Read the poem “Shall I Compare Thee To A Summer's Day” by
William Shakespeare again. Think about the author’s feelings on poetry
and its “eternal” power.

2. The author’s feelings are these:
- He loved one woman and he wrote this poem.
Exercise 4. Have a look at the following presentation on William
Shakespeare and his importance as one of the greatest writers in history.
Exercise 5. You can also have a look at the following trailers from films
based on William Shakespeare's plays:
● Romeo and Juliet
● Shakespeare in Love
● Ten Things I Hate About You
Exercise 6. Now try to answer the following questions. You can help
yourself with the translation into Spanish and/or Catalan. Remember to
write the ideas in English.
1. Who is "thee"?
It is a poem, the author compared the poem with the summer’s days
2. Does this poem necessarily keep living so long as humans keep breathing?
Is the speaker right?
I think the speaker is right
3. Lines 8 and 12 seem to do a bit of foreshadowing. Why? Because he speaks
about future (“When in eternal lines”)
Why not just surprise us with the turn and the couplet?
Because it sounds good
4. What’s up with all of the personification?
He speaks with the poem to give emphasis to the written
Exercise 7. Once you know a little bit about why and how Shakespeare
wrote his poem, Shall I Compare Thee To A Summer's Day?, you will need
to choose one of the parts into which it is divided. Read it carefully, help
the computer specialist to find images related to the poem, make a
selection of lines, record them with your voices (remember you can mix
Catalan, Spanish and English) and be original in your presentation. To do
this you can use the following pattern. You can design it on paper before
turning your poems into a video presentation.