Transcript Poetry

Sonnets-a form of expression
 Means
“a little sound or song”
 Traditionally, it is a 14-line poem written in
iambic pentameter
 Employs a specific rhyme scheme
 Tightly structured in organization
 Two main forms of sonnets (provide the models from
which all other sonnets are based):


Petrarchan
Shakespearean
 Divided

Octave: 1st eight lines



into two sections
Rhyme scheme: a b b a a b b a
Presents an argument, observation, question
Sestet: remaining 6 lines




Rhyme scheme not as strict as octave
Examples:
cdcdcd
cdecde
Does not in a couplet!
Presents the counterargument, clarification, or
whatever answer the octave demands
Milton! thou shouldst be living at this
hour:
Thy soul was like a Star, and dwelt
apart;
England hath need of thee: she is a fen
Of stagnant waters: altar, sword, and pen,
Thou hadst a voice whose sound was
like the sea:
Fireside, the heroic wealth of hall and
bower,
Pure as the naked heavens,
majestic, free,
Have forfeited their ancient English dower
So didst thou travel on life's
common way,
Of inward happiness. We are selfish men;
Oh! raise us up, return to us again;
And give us manners, virtue, freedom,
power.
In cheerful godliness; and yet thy
heart
The lowliest duties on herself did
lay.
Shakespearean Sonnet
 Consists
of 3 quatrains (stanzas containing 4
lines) and a couplet (2 rhyming lines)




Quatrain 1: a b a b
Quatrain 2: c d c d
Quatrain 3: e f e f
Couplet: g g
 Each
quatrain develops a specific idea, but is
closely related to the ideas in the other
quatrains
 Couplet plays a pivotal role-usually is a
conclusion to the poem (sometimes it can
refute points previously stated in the poem)
Sonnet 130-Shakespearean
My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun;
Coral is far more red than her lips' red;
If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;
If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.
I have seen roses damasked, red and white,
But no such roses see I in her cheeks;
And in some perfumes is there more delight
Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.
I love to hear her speak, yet well I know
That music hath a far more pleasing sound;
I grant I never saw a goddess go;
My mistress when she walks treads on the ground.
And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare
As any she belied with false compare.
What type of sonnet is this?
My letters! all dead paper, mute and white!
And yet they seem alive and quivering
Against my tremulous hands which loose the string
And let them drop down on my knee tonight.
This said—he wished to have me in his sight
Once, as a friend: this fixed a day in spring
To come and touch my hand. . . a simple thing,
Yes I wept for it—this . . . the paper's light. . .
Said, Dear, I love thee; and I sank and quailed
As if God's future thundered on my past.
This said, I am thine—and so its ink has paled
With lying at my heart that beat too fast.And this . . . 0
Love, thy words have ill availed
If, what this said, I dared repeat at last!
What type of sonnet is this?
When in disgrace with Fortune and men's eyes,
I all alone beweep my outcast state,
And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries,
And look upon myself and curse my fate,
Wishing me like to one more rich in hope,
Featured like him, like him with friends possessed,
Desiring this man's art and that man's scope,
With what I most enjoy contented least,
Yet in these thoughts my self almost despising,
Haply I think on thee, and then my state,
(Like to the lark at break of day arising
From sullen earth) sings hymns at heaven's gate,
For thy sweet love remembered such wealth brings,
That then I scorn to change my state with kings.