Download Shakespeare`s Sonnets

Shakespeare’s Sonnets
Structure of a Sonnet
14 line poem
 Themes not limited to love
 Meter = iambic pentameter
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5
iambic feet
 10 syllable lines, short syllable followed by
long; unstressed followed by stressed
 Chin test: da DUM da DUM da DUM da DUM
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Rule-breaker
Structure of a Sonnet
3 quatrains,1 couplet
 Quatrain 1 & 2 presents problem
 Volta = turning point of the poem
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 After
the 2nd quatrain
Quatrain 3 leads into resolution
 Couplet provides resolution/closure
 Rhyme scheme = abab, cdcd, efef, gg
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Structure of a Sonnet
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 ow’st;
Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou grow’st:
So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
So long lives this and this gives life to thee.
Sonnet Subjects
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Fair Youth;1-126
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Beautiful young man
1-17 = Procreation sonnets
41 & 42 = mistress has seduced FY
87-90 = poet’s insecurities
91-96 = reconciliation of the poet & FY
Henry Wriothesley, Earl of Southampton
Patron of Shakespeare
 Financial support
 Dedications in Venus and Adonis & The Rape of
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Lucrece
Sonnet Subjects
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Dark Lady; 127-152
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Sexual in content; opposite from
FY sonnets
Mary Fitton?
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Maid to Queen Elizabeth
Married William Herbert, Earl of Pembroke
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1609 dedication to Mr. WH
“Dark” descriptions reference ethnicity or represent
their relationship
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Lust, passion, jealousy, hatred, anger, paranoia
Sonnet Subjects
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Rival poet
 Christopher
Marlowe or George Chapman
 Competition for fame or patronage
 FY sonnets
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Cupid; 153 & 154
 Allegorical
sonnets
 Allusion to mythology
Authorship
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Order of sonnets
Printed with author’s consent?
Titlepage =
MR.W.H.“TO.THE.ONLIE.BEGETTER.OF./THESE.INSIVIN
G.SONNETS.”
Thomas Thorpe’s initials only
“Mr. W.H.” unknown
 William Herbert, Earl of Pembroke
 Father of Mary Fitton’s child; scandal (DL?)
 Henry Wriothesley, Earl of Southampton
 Fair Youth