Page 121 - 100 Best Loved Poems - Teaching Unit
P. 121
“Sonnet XCIV”
by William Shakespeare, page 7
Vocabulary
inherit – receive
base – dishonorable, vile
infection – disease
fester – worsen, be made bitter
1. What kind of people is the speaker describing in the first two quatrains of the sonnet?
2. What does the speaker claim will happen to these people?
3. In the sonnet’s concluding sestet, the speaker shifts his thoughts to a description of nature,
discussing lilies and weeds. What does the final couplet suggest about the tone and
message of the poem in its entirety?
S-7
