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Shakespearean Sonnet by R. S. Gwynn
This poem has a conventional rhyme scheme for a traditional Shakespearean or
Elizabethan sonnet, with the rhymed words at the end of each line.
Gwynn makes use of some internal alliteration. Examples include “…feuding families
fight.”, “…ruler’s rivals…”, “…sets the scene…” and other words with the same initial sounds,
placed close together in the poem mute the end rhymes and emphasize certain words.
Man/meets/murdered, plot/prince, doubts/decides daughters/disagree, are some more
examples. I did not find examples of assonance or consonance.
I don’t hear meter very well, but this poem seems to be written in iambic pentameter,
with a mixture of rising and falling meter.
Gwynn’s sonnet has 14 lines, which is conventional, but it does not make use of stanzas
to separate the octave from the sestet.
The imagery in this poem is clever; each of the fourteen lines alludes to a
Shakespearean play. I deciphered eight of them: Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet, Macbeth, Othello, A
Midsummer Night’s Dream, Cleopatra, and Julius Caesar. Although the first line refers to
Hamlet, Gwynn says he was found it in the TV listings. Television is a visual media. Plays appeal
to many senses, especially Shakespeare’s plays, as they are written in verse.
A light, humorous tone permeates this poem. It is set at the start with the epigram
“(With a first line taken from the tv listings)”. Informal language is used to refer to something
that many people consider formal and serious. Romeo and Juliet’s romance is reduced to “Boy
meets girl…”, and Cleopatra is referred to as “A sexy queen….” “A duke learns that his best
friend is a she,” is one of my favorite lines in the poem, although I don’t know the play to which
it refers. I don’t perceive the traditional shift in mood between the octave and sestet one
expects in a sonnet, so the poem stays light, humorous and informal throughout.
The epigram is what drew me to this poem at the outset. To see the aggrandized works
of Shakespeare reduced to single line descriptions, such as one finds in the TV Guide drew me
in even further. Now that I’ve familiarized myself with this poem, I can tell those who may be
unfamiliar with Shakespeare that Othello’s plot is “A noble Moor has doubts about his wife.”
that in Macbeth “A Scottish king is murdered by his host.”, and King Lear is as simple as “An old
man and his daughters disagree.” That’s a real time-saver.
Gwynn invites us to look at complicated subject matter in a different way. Those that do
not particularly like Shakespeare might see a fellow decrier in Gwynn. Scholars of the bard
might be aghast at this simple reduction to base parts. I think Shakespeare would be pleased, as
he wrote his plays to parody, and satirize serious events of his day, as well as historic ones, in a
form the common people could appreciate and more readily understand, and which
entertained them as they entertain us today. Gwynn makes a point that these plays are not as
complicated as people make them out to be, and he tempts me to delve into them further. The
poem has inspired me to research those play descriptions that I don’t know. It could be an
excellent way to teach young children about Shakespeare, his plays, and his poetry.
I found it entertaining, funny, and educational.
Link to the analyzed poem at
http://writersalmanac.publicradio.org/index.php?date=2005/04/12