The Sonnet

1
The Sonnet
2
Petrarchan/Italian

• ABBAABBACDCDCD
• Petarch father of Humanism
• the human form is manifest of the divine
• individualism, emotionalism, hedonism
• 14th century Italy
• Considered one of the first modern poets
• Laura was his muse
• Petrarchan conceit a metaphor comparing the
  beloved to the divine or great

3
Petrarchs Sonnet 159

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

4
Shakespearean/English

• ABABCDCDEFEFGG
• Closing couplet usually plays with both ideas
  closing and/or couple
• Iambic pentameter
• 16th and 17th century England
• Humanistic elements
• More realistic, lasting love
• Anti-petrarchan conceits (my mistresss eyes are
  nothing like the sun)
• Sonnet Sequence

5
Shakespeares Sonnet 130

• My mistress eyes are nothing like the sun A
• Coral is far more red than her lips red B
• If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun A
• If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.
  B
• I have seen roses damaskd, red and white, C
• But no such roses see I in her cheeks D
• And in some perfumes is there more delight C
• Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks. D
• I love to hear her speak, yet will I know E
• That music hath a far more pleasing sound F
• I grant that I never saw a goddess go E
• My mistress, when she walks, treads on the
  ground. F
• TURN/VOLTA
• And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare G
• As any she belied with false compare. G

6
Shakespeares Sonnet 30

• When to the sessions of sweet silent thoughtI
  summon up remembrance of things past, I sigh the
  lack of many a thing I sought, And with old woes
  new wail my dear time's wasteThen can I drown
  an eye, unused to flow, For precious friends hid
  in death's dateless night,And weep afresh love's
  long since cancell'd woe, And moan the expense
  of many a vanish'd sight Then can I grieve at
  grievances foregone, And heavily from woe to woe
  tell o'er The sad account of fore-bemoaned moan,
  Which I new pay as if not paid before. But if
  the while I think on thee, dear friend,All
  losses are restored and sorrows end.

7
Create an English Sonnet

• Write several lines (a quatrain?) of a sonnet.
• Try to emulate Shakespeares ideas and language.
• Write in iambic pentameter and use the rhyme
  scheme.
• See how difficult it is?