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Sonnets

Iambic Pentameter and Sonnet 18

+IAMBIC PENTAMETER: a line of poetry that has 5 iambs (or pair of unstressed and stressed syllables).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Qv-sjQHgZ8

+Important Symbols

U = Unstressed

/ = Stressed

| = Separates Iambs

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 un-trimm'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 18: Mark the iambic pentameter

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:

+About the English or Shakespearean Sonnet

14 lines in total

3 quatrains (or group of 4 lines)

1 couplet

Contain a Volta (a change in subject, tone, or voice) that usually happens in the last quatrain or couplet.

Full of emotional torment and struggle of love and forgiveness, anguish and despair.

Sonnet 18 Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?

Thou art more lovely and more temperate:

Sonnet 18Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May, And summer's lease hath all too short a date:

+Sonnet 18

In groups of three, study your assigned line and notecard.

Analyze the line and summarize the overall meaning.

Present to the class.

You have 5 minutes to prepare and 2 minutes to present. Everyone must speak.

Sonnet 18Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines, And often is his gold complexion dimm'd;

Sonnet 18

And every fair from fair sometime declines, By chance, or nature's changing course un-trimm'd;

Sonnet 18

But thy eternal summer shall not fade, Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st,

Sonnet 18

Nor shall death brag thou wander'st in his shade,When in eternal lines to time thou grow'st;

Sonnet 18So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see, So long lives this, and this gives life to thee

Sonnet 18 Commentary The gender of the addressee is not explicit The first two quatrains focus on the fair person’s beauty The poet attempts to compare it to a summer’s day The timeless beauty far surpasses that of the fleeting,

inconstant season. The theme of the ravages of time predominates The poet is eternalizing the fair person’s beauty in his verse

The poet describes summer as a season of extremes and

disappointments These imperfections contrast sharply with the poet’s

description of the fair person In line 12 we find the poet’s solution The poet plans to capture the fair persons’s beauty in his

verse The poem will withstand the ravages of time Summer as a metaphor for youth, or perhaps beauty or

both

Rhyme Scheme

Rhyme Scheme is the use rhyme in a pattern as a structural element

in a poem.

Rhyme schemes are described using letters that

correspond to sets of rhymes.

Example: Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall, A

Humpty Dumpty had a great fall; AAll the king’s horses and all the king’s men,

BCouldn’t put Humpty together again. B-------------------------------------------------The rhyme scheme for this poem is:

A A B B

Sonnet 73

That time of year thou mayst in me beholdWhen yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hangUpon those boughs which shake against the cold,Bare ruined choirs, where late the sweet birds sang.In me thou seest the twilight of such dayAs after sunset fadeth in the west,Which by and by black night doth take away,Death's second self, that seals up all in rest.In me thou see'st the glowing of such fireThat on the ashes of his youth doth lie,As the death-bed whereon it must expireConsumed with that which it was nourish'd by.This thou perceivest, which makes thy love more strong,To love that well which thou must leave ere long.

Sonnet 130My 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.

+Homework

Write a sonnet to be read in front of the class on April 25th.