Sonnets

SONNETSPrepared by Miss Jenny Lou C.

Sasoy

How Do I Love Thee?By Elizabeth Barrett Browning

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways. I love thee to the depth and breadth and height My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight For the ends of Being and ideal Grace. I love thee to the level of every day's Most quiet need, by sun and candlelight. I love thee freely, as men strive for Right; I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise. I love with a passion put to use In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith. I love thee with a love I seemed to lose With my lost saints, I love thee with the breath, Smiles, tears, of all my life! and, if God choose, I shall but love thee better after death.



















How sweet was that?

What is a SONNET? It is a lyric poem consisting of

fourteen lines written in iambic pentameter.

It has a define rhyme scheme with a definite thought structure.

The traditional subject of the sonnet has primarily been

Iambic Penta…what?!

It is an unstressed syllable followed by an stressed syllable.

Iambic Foot

A simple grouping of syllables, some stressed and some unstressed.

Iambic Pentameter

means a line of ten syllables, which alternates unstressed and stressed syllables

Foot

Example

U / U / U / U / U / One day I wrote her name u pon the strand, U / U / U / U / U / But came the waves and wash ed it a way: U / U / U / U / U / A gain I wrote it with a sec ond hand, U / U / U / U / U / But came the tide, and made my pains his prey

- Edmund Spenser, Amoretti, Sonnet 75

1 2 3 4 5

Rhyme Scheme It refers to the pattern formed by the

rhyming words at the end of each line. Each end-rhyme is assigned a letter, and the fourteen letters assigned to the sonnet describe the rhyme scheme. Different kinds of sonnets have different rhyme schemes.

Sonnet 18Shall 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 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.

ABABCDCDEFEFGG

Thought Structure Octave/ sestet

The octave, eight lines, presents a situation or idea.

The sestet (sextet), six lines, responds, to the situation or idea in the octave.

Quatrain, quatrain, quatrain, coupletEach quatrain, four lines, describes an

idea or situation which leads to a conclusion or response in the couplet, two lines.

KINDS OF SONNETS

Petrarchan/Italian Sonnet It is named after the fourteenth century poet

Petrarch. It has the rhyme scheme ABBAABBA CDECDE. The first eight lines form the octave. The last

six lines form the sestet. Variant rhyme schemes for the sestet also

include CDCDCD and CDEDCE. There is usually a pause or break in thought

between the octave and sestet called the volta, or turn.

Shakespearean/English Sonnet It is actually developed in the sixteenth

century by the Earl of Surrey, but is named after Shakespeare because of his great sonnet sequence printed in 1609.

as the rhyme scheme ABAB CDCD EFEF GG, forming three quatrains (four lines in a group) and a closing couplet (two rhymed lines).

The problem is usually developed in the first three quatrains, each quatrain with a new idea growing out of the previous one.

Spenserian Sonnet

It was invented by Edmund Spenser. It is a variation of the English sonnet

with the rhyme scheme ABAB BCBC CDCD EE, in which the quatrains are linked by a continuation of one end-rhyme from the previous quatrain.

Let’s Practice!

Sonnet 43


Sonnet 43


ABBAABBACDCDCD

PETRARCHAN SONNET







ABABCDCDEFEFGG

SHAKESPEREAN SONNET

Sonnet 75

One day I wrote her name upon the strand,But came the waves and washèd it away:Again I wrote it with a second hand,But came the tide, and made my pains his prey."Vain man," said she, "that dost in vain assay,A mortal thing so to immortalize,For I myself shall like to this decay,And eek my name be wipèd out likewise.""Not so," quod I, "let baser things devise,To die in dust, but you shall live by fame:My verse your virtues rare shall eternize,And in the heavens write your glorious name.Where whenas death shall all the world subdue,Our love shall live, and later life renew."

Sonnet 75

One day I wrote her name upon the strand,But came the waves and washèd it away:Again I wrote it with a second hand,But came the tide, and made my pains his prey."Vain man," said she, "that dost in vain assay,A mortal thing so to immortalize,For I myself shall like to this decay,And eek my name be wipèd out likewise.""Not so," quod I, "let baser things devise,To die in dust, but you shall live by fame:My verse your virtues rare shall eternize,And in the heavens write your glorious name.Where whenas death shall all the world subdue,Our love shall live, and later life renew."

ABABBCBCCDCDEESPENSERIAN SONNET

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Sonnets