1. Sonnets of Petrarch and Shakespeare
Renaissance Poetry
Sonnets of Petrarch and Shakespeare

2. “At the touch of love, everyone becomes a poet.” - Plato
“If my poetry aims to achieve anything, it’s to deliver people from the limited ways in which they see and feel.”
- Jim Morrison, The Doors
“At the touch of love, everyone becomes a poet.” - Plato
“Poetry is painting that is felt rather than seen.” - Da Vinci
“When power corrupts, poetry cleanses.”
- JFK

3. Sonnet 14 Lines Octave and Sestet Iambic Pentameter
Iambic – 2 syllable feet with the stress on the second syllable
Pentameter – 5 feet
Often about a beloved, sometimes unattainable

4. Inspiration
Love
Poetry
Art

5. Soleasi Nel Mio Cor She ruled in beauty o'er this heart of mine,
A noble lady in a humble home,
And now her time for heavenly bliss has come,
'Tis I am mortal proved, and she divine.
The soul that all its blessings must resign,
And love whose light no more on earth finds room,
Might rend the rocks with pity for their doom,
Yet none their sorrows can in words enshrine;
They weep within my heart; and ears are deaf
Save mine alone, and I am crushed with care,
And naught remains to me save mournful breath.
Assuredly but dust and shade we are,
Assuredly desire is blind and brief,
Assuredly its hope but ends in death.
Translated by Thomas Wentworth Higginson.

6. The Octave The first 8 linesB
She ruled in beauty o'er this heart of mine,
A noble lady in a humble home,
And now her time for heavenly bliss has come,
'Tis I am mortal proved, and she divine.
The soul that all its blessings must resign,
And love whose light no more on earth finds room,
Might rend the rocks with pity for their doom,
Yet none their sorrows can in words enshrine;
The Problem or Desire

7. The Sestet The last 6 lines
They weep within my heart; and ears are deaf
Save mine alone, and I am crushed with care,
And naught remains to me save mournful breath.
Assuredly but dust and shade we are,
Assuredly desire is blind and brief,
Assuredly its hope but ends in death. C D E
Comment or Solution

8. 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 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.

9. The Quatrains The first 12 lines
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: A B C D E F

10. The Couplet The last 2 lines
So long as men can breathe or eyes can see, So long lives this, and this gives life to thee. G
“like going for a short drive with a very fast driver: the first lines, even the first quatrain, are in low gear; then the second and third accelerate sharply, and ideas and metaphors flash past; and then there is a sudden throttling-back, and one glides to a stop in the couplet” (Spiller 159)