The Sonnet

1
The 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
  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.

2
The Sonnet

• Sonnet 18
• Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?Thou art
  more lovely and more temperateRough winds do
  shake the darling buds of May,And summer's lease
  hath all too short a dateSometime too hot the
  eye of heaven shines,And often is his gold
  complexion dimm'dAnd every fair from fair
  sometime declines,By chance or nature's changing
  course untrimm'dBut thy eternal summer shall
  not fadeNor lose possession of that fair thou
  owestNor shall Death brag thou wander'st in his
  shade,When in eternal lines to time thou
  growest  So long as men can breathe or eyes can
  see,  So long lives this and this gives life to
  thee.

3
The Sonnet

• Sonnet 130
• My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sunCoral
  is far more red than her lips' redIf snow be
  white, why then her breasts are dunIf hairs be
  wires, black wires grow on her head.I have seen
  roses damask'd, red and white,But no such roses
  see I in her cheeksAnd in some perfumes is
  there more delightThan in the breath that from
  my mistress reeks.I love to hear her speak, yet
  well I knowThat music hath a far more pleasing
  soundI grant I never saw a goddess goMy
  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.

4
The Sonnet

• Sonnet 29
• When, in disgrace with fortune and men's eyes,I
  all alone beweep my outcast stateAnd trouble
  deal heaven with my bootless criesAnd look upon
  myself and curse my fate,Wishing me like to one
  more rich in hope,Featured like him, like him
  with friends possess'd,Desiring this man's art
  and that man's scope,With what I most enjoy
  contented leastYet in these thoughts myself
  almost despising,Haply I think on thee, and then
  my state,Like to the lark at break of day
  arisingFrom sullen earth, sings hymns at
  heaven's gateFor thy sweet love remember'd such
  wealth bringsThat then I scorn to change my
  state with kings.

5
The Sonnet

• Sonnet 116
• Let me not to the marriage of true mindsAdmit
  impediments. Love is not loveWhich alters when
  it alteration finds,Or bends with the remover to
  removeO no! it is an ever-fixed markThat looks
  on tempests and is never shakenIt is the star
  to every wandering bark,Whose worth's unknown,
  although his height be taken.Love's not Time's
  fool, though rosy lips and cheeksWithin his
  bending sickle's compass comeLove alters not
  with his brief hours and weeks,But bears it out
  even to the edge of doom.If this be error and
  upon me proved,I never writ, nor no man ever
  loved.

6
The Sonnet

• A 14-line lyric poem in iambic pentameter with
  rhyme.
• lyric - a poem which is expressive rather than
  narrative

7
The Sonnet

• Rhyme We assign a letter of the alphabet to
  each line-ending sound, and repeat the letter
  whenever the sound is repeated
• That time of year thou mayst in me behold A
• When yellow leaves, or none, or few do hang B
• Upon those boughs which shake against the cold A
• Bare, ruined choirs where late the sweet birds
  sang. B

8
The Sonnet

• Iambic pentamter refers to the length of the
  poetic line and its rhythm. Poetic meter is
  measured in feet, where each stressed syllable
  is called a foot.
• A line which has 5 stressed syllables would be
  5-meter or using a Greek root pentameter

9
The Sonnet

• That time of year thou mayst in me behold A
• When yellow leaves, or none, or few do hang B
• Upon those boughs which shake against the cold A
• Bare, ruined choirs where late the sweet birds
  sang. B
• The first 3 lines each have 5 stressed syllables
  meaning the poem is in pentameter. The extra
  stressed syllables in line 4 should be seen as a
  variation of the pentameter, not a new meter.

10
The Sonnet

• That time of year thou mayst in me behold A
• When yellow leaves, or none, or few do hang B
• Upon those boughs which shake against the cold A
• Bare, ruined choirs where late the sweet birds
  sang. B
• iambic pentameter is when each stressed
  syllable is preceded by a non-stressed syllable.
  (So a line of iambic pentameter necessarily has
  10 syllables).
• This creates a da-DUM, da-Dum, da-DUM, type
  rhythm.

11
The Sonnet

• By contrast if the stressed syllable comes
  before the associated unstressed syllable we call
  it a trochee DA-dem, or Ti-ger, which
  musically is

12
The Sonnet

• When a stressed syllable has no associated
  unstressed syllables it is called a spondee
• That time of year thou May's in me behold A
• When yellow leaves, or none, or few do hang B
• Upon those boughs which shake against the cold A
• Bare, ruined choirs where late the sweet birds
  sang. B
• The 4th line here ends in 3 spondees sweet birds
  sang (like the da-da-da of the Col. Bogey
  March)

13
The Sonnet

• Now try it with your name
• John Kenny a spondee, followed by a trochee 2
  stressed syllables, the first has no unstressed
  attached
• The second has an unstressed after the stressed

14
The Sonnet

• Sonnets originated during the Italian Renaissance
  (14th century). The poet Francesco Petrarch
  (1304-1374) is most closely associated with the
  development of the form.
• Sonnets came to England during its Renaissance
  (15th century), and were practiced by many
  writers, but are especially connected to William
  Shakespeare (1564-1616) who wrote a famous series
  of 154 sonnets

15
The Sonnet

• There are 3 main differences between the two
  styles
• The English sonnet (also called the Shakespearean
  or Elizabethan) rhymed abab cdcd efef gg.
• It broke down naturally then into 4 parts, three
  quatrains (a group of 4 lines) and a couplet (2
  succeeding lines which rhyme with each other) at
  the end.

16
The Sonnet

• You can see how the 4 part structure is reflected
  in the rhyme scheme
• abab 1st quatrain
• cdcd 2nd quatrain
• efef 3rd quatrain
• gg couplet
• Often each of these four sections also had a
  slightly separate view of the sonnets subject.
  Frequently each of he units was also a complete
  sentence or independent clause (look for . or )

17
The Sonnet

• The Petrarchan (or Italian) sonnet rhymed abba
  abba cdecde
• And so fell more into two parts the octave (8)
  which had one basic pattern the sestet (6),
  which had another.
• Customarily the Petrarchan sonnet elaborated a
  problem in the octave and sought to resolve it in
  the sestet.

18
The Sonnet

• Though useful, these labels can be misleading.
  While some of Shakespeares sonnets are
  Shakespearean in structure, most deviate more
  or less from the model.
• And many poets writing in English including some
  of Shakespeares contemporaries, use the Italian
  form.