An Introduction to Sonnets English 9C Kristi Stuckey Lake Shore High School

What is a sonnet? Sonnets are poems that meet the following rules: 1.All sonnets are 14 lines long. 2.Sonnets in English are written in iambic pentameter, which means that each line has 10 syllables, alternating in an unstressed/stressed pattern. 3.Sonnets follow a predetermined rhyme scheme; the rhyme pattern determines if the sonnet is Petrarchan (Italian) or Shakespearean (English). 4.A sonnet introduces a problem or question in the beginning, and a resolution is offered after the turn. 5.A sonnet can be about any subject, though they are often about love or nature.

Iambic Pentameter

What is a sonnet? Sonnets are poems that meet the following rules: 1.All sonnets are 14 lines long. 2.Sonnets in English are written in iambic pentameter, which means that each line has 10 syllables, alternating in an unstressed/stressed pattern. 3.Sonnets follow a predetermined rhyme scheme; the rhyme pattern determines if the sonnet is Petrarchan (Italian) or Shakespearean (English). 4.A sonnet introduces a problem or question in the beginning, and a resolution is offered after the turn. 5.A sonnet can be about any subject, though they are often about love or nature.

Let’s Mark Up a Rhyme Scheme Love Is Not All by Edna St. Vincent Millay Love is not all: It is not meat nor drink Nor slumber nor a roof against the rain, Nor yet a floating spar to men that sink and rise and sink and rise and sink again. Love cannot fill the thickened lung with breath Nor clean the blood, nor set the fractured bone; Yet many a man is making friends with death even as I speak, for lack of love alone. It well may be that in a difficult hour, pinned down by need and moaning for release or nagged by want past resolution's power, I might be driven to sell your love for peace, Or trade the memory of this night for food. It may well be. I do not think I would. Love Is Not All by Edna St. Vincent Millay A B A B C D C D E F E F G G

What is a sonnet? Sonnets are poems that meet the following rules: 1.All sonnets are 14 lines long. 2.Sonnets in English are written in iambic pentameter, which means that each line has 10 syllables, alternating in an unstressed/stressed pattern. 3.Sonnets follow a predetermined rhyme scheme; the rhyme pattern determines if the sonnet is Petrarchan (Italian) or Shakespearean (English). 4.A sonnet introduces a problem or question in the beginning, and a resolution is offered after the turn. 5.A sonnet can be about any subject, though they are often about love or nature.

The two major sonnet forms: Petrarchan (Italian) A B AOctave (8 lines) A B AThe TURN C D E CSestet (6 lines) D E Shakespearean A B A B C D C3 quatrains D E FThe TURN E F GRhyming G Couplet

What is a sonnet? Sonnets are poems that meet the following rules: 1.All sonnets are 14 lines long. 2.Sonnets in English are written in iambic pentameter, which means that each line has 10 syllables, alternating in an unstressed/stressed pattern. 3.Sonnets follow a predetermined rhyme scheme; the rhyme pattern determines if the sonnet is Petrarchan (Italian) or Shakespearean (English). 4.A sonnet introduces a problem or question in the beginning, and a resolution is offered after the turn. 5.A sonnet can be about any subject, though they are often about love or nature.

The Turn of the Sonnet A sonnet’s turn is the point in the sonnet where the poet changes perspective or alters his/her approach to description. This often results in a sonnet following a “position-contrasting position” type of structure, or occasionally a “change of heart” in the poet at the end of the verse. Look at this sonnet as an example: Notice that the poem’s turn is a change from discussing how NOT beautiful his lover is to how much he is consumed by the woman. Sonnet 130 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

The Turn of the Sonnet A sonnet’s turn is the point in the sonnet where the poet changes perspective or alters his/her approach to description. This often results in a sonnet following a “position-contrasting position” type of structure, or occasionally a “change of heart” in the poet at the end of the verse. Look at this sonnet as an example: Notice that the poem’s turn is a change from discussing the grasshopper to discussing the cricket. On the Grasshopper and the Cricket The Poetry of earth is never dead: When all the birds are faint with the hot sun, And hide in cooling trees, a voice will run From hedge to hedge about the new-mown mead; That is the Grasshopper’s—he takes the lead In summer luxury,—he has never done With his delights; for when tired out with fun He rests at ease beneath some pleasant weed. The poetry of earth is ceasing never: On a lone winter evening, when the frost Has wrought a silence, from the stove there shrills The Cricket’s song, in warmth increasing ever, And seems to one in drowsiness half lost, The Grasshopper’s among some grassy hills.

Now Let’s Paraphrase 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 dimmed, And every fair from fair sometime declines, By chance, or nature's changing course untrimmed: But thy eternal summer shall not fade, Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st, Nor shall death brag thou wand'rest in his shade, When in eternal lines to time thou bgrow'st, So long as men can breathe or eyes can see, So long lives this, and this gives life to thee. OOOOH Baby I think I shall compare you to a summer day But, you know, you're prettier and even better, even calm Because it gets windy and buds on the trees get shaken off And sometimes summer doesn't last very long Sometimes it's too hot And everything gorgeous loses its looks And just because everyone and everything gets old and ugly and shabby BUT you're going to keep your looks for ever your beauty will last for ever I‘ll make sure that you never lose your good looks And that nasty old Death can never brag about owning you Because I shall write this poem about you As long as men can breathe (are you breathing?) As long as men can see (are you looking at this poem?) Then this poem lives, and it gives life and memory to your beauty. Petrachan or Shakespearean?

Sonnet 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 my self 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. On a new piece of paper, do the following: 1.Paraphrase each of the 14 lines. 2.Note the line numbers that contain the shift. 3.Explain the theme of the poem. 4.Write whether the sonnet is Petrarchan or Shakespearean.

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