Sonnet Review

Sonnet is a 14 line poem written in iambic pentameter. Employs one of several rhyme schemes Adheres to a tightly structured thematic organization The poet introduces at least one volta (or a jump or shift in direction of the emotions or thought), usually somewhat after the middle of the Sonnet. Two forms provided the model on which all other sonnets are based: The English (Shakespearean) and the Italian (Petrarchan )

Review: Iambic pentameter Iamb- refers to the stresses in the line. “Iamb” is the noun. “Iambic” is the adjective. It is the meter into which English most naturally falls. Pentameter- This identifies the number of iambic “feet” in the line. Since an iamb has two syllables, we see that in this meter, there are five iambic feet.

For example: x / x / x / x / x / I love to hear her speak, yet well I know By marking the line’s stressed and unstressed syllables, we see it is, indeed, iambic pentameter.

Shakespearean sonnets Have three quatrains and a couplet follow this rhyme scheme: abab, cdcd, efef, gg. The “volta” or turn can start before the last couplet. Shakespeare sometimes places this between the third quatrain and the concluding couplet. Often this marks a change from the presentation of images and the building of a case (in the quatrains). After the turn, the poet often states a conclusion, sometimes the "meaning" or "purpose" of the poem. Often has its greatest power in the concluding couplet. The couplet plays a pivotal role, usually arriving in the form of a conclusion, amplification, or even refutation of the previous three stanzas, often creating an epiphanic quality to the end.

The first twelve lines compare the speaker’s mistress unfavorably with nature’s beauties. 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. But the concluding couplet swerves in a surprising direction

In Sonnet 130 we see . . . Shakespeare playing a joke on the conventional Petrarchan sonnet form Most sonnet forms in Shakespeare’s time were modeled after Petrarch’s form (the Italian sonnet) ABBA Petrarch’s famous sonnet sequence was written as a series of love poems to an idealized and idolized mistress named Laura. In the sonnets, Petrarch praises her beauty, her worth, and her perfection using an extraordinary variety of metaphors based largely on natural beauties.

In Shakespeare’s day, these metaphors had already become cliche (as, indeed, they still are today), but they were still the accepted technique for writing love poetry. The result was that poems tended to make highly idealizing comparisons between nature and the poets’ lover that were, if taken literally, completely ridiculous.

Shakespeare’s sonnets subvert and reverse the conventions of the Petrarchan love sequence: Sonnet 130 mocks the typical Petrarchan metaphors by presenting a speaker who seems to take them at face value, and somewhat bemusedly, decides to tell the truth. Your mistress’ eyes are like the sun? That’s strange—my mistress’ eyes aren’t at all like the sun. Your mistress’ breath smells like perfume? My mistress’ breath reeks compared to perfume. In the couplet, then, the speaker shows his full intent, which is to insist that love does not need these conceits in order to be real; and women do not need to look like flowers or the sun in order to be beautiful.

The rhetorical structure of Sonnet 130 is important to its effect In the first quatrain, the speaker spends one line on each comparison between his mistress and something else (the sun, coral, snow, and wires—the one positive thing in the whole poem some part of his mistress is like. In the second and third quatrains, he expands the descriptions to occupy two lines each, so that roses/cheeks, perfume/breath, music/voice, and goddess/mistress each receive a pair of unrhymed lines. This creates the effect of an expanding and developing argument, and neatly prevents the poem—which does, after all, rely on a single kind of joke for its first twelve lines—from becoming stagnant.

Remember: Shakespearean sonnets are the most flexible of all the classical sonnet forms. The “turn” or “volta” can come in line 9 or in the final couplet.