Download THE SONNET FORM

Oh no…my
mistress’s eyes
are nothing like
the sun! What,
then, can I
possibly write?
THE SONNET FORM
The Literary Renaissance
The Sonnet: Requirements
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14 lines
Subject: focus on personal thoughts and feelings
Variable rhyme scheme
Meter varies, but for Shakespeare: Iambic
Pentameter (5 units of meter, unstressed followed
by stressed syllable)
My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun
Petrarchan Sonnet (Italian)
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Italian poet (1304-1374)
Father of sonnet form
Expression of emotion and love
Wrote over 300 to a beautiful woman he could not
have (Laura)
2-part structure: Octave (8 lines, abbaabba),
followed by a Sestet, (last 6 lines, cdcdcd or
cdecde)
Octave – presents situation/problem
Sestet – Resolves/draws conclusions about
situation
This is Francesco Petrarch.
If I were Laura, I
would also ignore
him.
English/Shakespearean Sonnet
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Sir Thomas Wyatt (1530s) and Henry Howard first
altered the Petrarchan form’s rhyme scheme to
make the English sonnet
1600s – Sonnets are most popular poem forms in
English
Shakespeare’s sonnet (published 154)
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To the fair youth (young man), #s1-126
To the Dark Lady, #s 127-152
To his rival poet, #s 78-86
Love and philosophical issues
His objects of affection were never perfect –
celebrated humanity at its most real level
English/Shakespearean Sonnet
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Themes:
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Time, death, beauty, change
Form:
Three Quatrains (groups of four lines), followed by
a rhyming couplet (two lines that have end rhyme)
⬜ Each quatrain focuses on a particular image,
building the story
⬜ Rhyming couplet brings the ideas
together/provides the final comment.
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The Fair Youth v. The Dark Lady
Shakespeare’s Sonnet #18
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.
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B
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Spenserian Sonnet (English)
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Edmund Spenser
Sonnet Sequence “Amoretti”, or “little intimate
tokens of love” (1595)
Progression models that of a traditional
courtship
Partly autobiographical; thought to be written
during his courtship with his second wife.
Difference from Shakespearean Sonnet:
Rhyme scheme of quatrains – interlocking
rhyme scheme (abab/bcbc/cdcd/ee)
Edmund Spenser and Elizabeth Boyle
Marry me!!
I guess...we do
have the same
weird collar...
Words to Know
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Couplet – group of two lines
Quatrain – group of four lines
Octave – group of eight lines
Sestet – group of six lines
Volta - turn or dramatic shift in the poem
Lyrical poem – expresses personal emotions or
feelings, usually in first person, musical quality
Sonnet – 14-line lyric poem with complicated
rhyme scheme (based on its origin)