The Sonnet

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The Sonnet
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What is a Sonnet?

• Popularized in the 14th century by Petrarch, an
  Italian poet
• Definition A lyric poem comprising 14 rhyming
  lines of iambic pentameter
• Standard subject matter of early sonnets was the
  torments of passionate love
• Usually in a courtly love convention
• Sonnet sequences
• Sonnets connected by theme and subject matter

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English Sonnet

• Often referred to as a Shakespearean sonnet.
• Made up of three quatrains (set of 4 lines) and a
  concluding couplet (2 lines).
• The volta (turn) comes at the end with the
  heroic couplet
• Rhyme scheme
• abab cdcd efef gg

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Sonnet 100 by Shakespeare

• Where art thou, Muse, that thou forget'st so long
• To speak of that which gives thee all thy might?
• Spend'st thou thy fury on some worthless song,
• Darkening thy power to lend base subjects light?
• Return, forgetful Muse, and straight redeem
• In gentle numbers time so idly spent
• Sing to the ear that doth thy lays esteem
• And gives thy pen both skill and argument.
• Rise, resty Muse, my love's sweet face survey,
• If Time have any wrinkle graven there
• If any, be a satire to decay,
• And make Time's spoils despised every where.
• Give my love fame faster than Time wastes life
• So thou prevent'st his scythe and crooked knife.

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Italian Sonnet

• Also known as a Petrarchan sonnet.
• Made up of an 8-line octave and a 6-line sestet
• The octave follows a rhyme scheme of abbaabba.
• The sestet follows one of the following rhyme
  schemes cdecde or cdcdcd.
• The transition from the octave to the sestet
  usually coincides with a volta (turn) in the
  argument of the poem.

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Sonnet 125 by Petrarch

• In what bright realm, what sphere of radiant
  thought
• Did nature find the model whence she drew
• That delicate dazzling image where we view
• Here on this earth what she in heaven wrought?
• What fountain-haunting nymph, what dryad, sought
• In groves, such golden tresses ever threw
• Upon the gust? What heart such virtues knew?
• Though her chief virtue with my death is fraught.
• He looks in vain for heavenly beauty, he
• Who never looked upon her perfect eyes,
• The vivid blue orbs turning brilliantly
• He does not know how love yields and denies
• He only knows, who knows how sweetly she
• Can talk and laugh, the sweetness of her sighs.

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Rhyme scheme

• Petrarchan (Italian) rhyme scheme
• abba, abba, cd, cd, cd
• abba, abba, cde, cde
• Shakespearean (English) rhyme scheme
• abab, cdcd, efef, gg

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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 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.

A B A B C d C D E F E F G G
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Iambic Pentameter

• Verse written in five-foot lines with the
  following pattern one unstressed syllable
  followed by a stressed syllable
• This two syllable combination is called an iamb.
• Five iambs Ten syllables per line
• For example
• But soft! What light through yonder window
  breaks?

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Iambic Pentameter

• Verse written in five-foot lines with the
  following pattern one unstressed syllable
  followed by a stressed syllable
• This two syllable combination is called an iamb.
• Five iambs Ten syllables per line
• For example
• But SOFT! What LIGHT through YONder WINdow
  BREAKS?

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An iamb is a metrical foot consisting ofan
unaccented syllable Ufollowed by an accented
syllable /.

• u /
• a gain
• u / u /
• im mor tal ize

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Rhythm and Meaning

• While the iamb u / easily represents a natural
  rhythm and emphasis often used in English, the
  trochee / u gives a feeling of pressing forward,
  of more urgency or insistence
• / u / u / u /
  u
• Charging down the Kings path
  steady
• The anapest is used for a galloping
• kind of rhythm u u / u u / or for a light,
• almost comic feeling
• u / u u / u u
  /
• There once was a fellow at Drew

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Iambic pentameter
1 2 3
4 5

• U / U / U / U
  / U /
• One day I wrote her name u pon the strand,
• But came the waves and washed it a way
• A gain I wrote it with a second hand,
• But came the tide, and made my
• pains his prey
• Edmund Spenser, Amoretti, Sonnet 75

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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, couplet
• Each quatrain, four lines, describes and idea or
  situation which leads to a conclusion or response
  in the couplet, two lines.