The Sonnet

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The Sonnet
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A sonnet is

• a lyric poem
• consisting of fourteen lines
• written in iambic pentameter
• with a definite rhyme scheme
• and a definite thought structure

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A lyric poem

• Deals with emotions, feelings

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Iambic pentameter consists of

• five measures, units, or meters, of
• iambs

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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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Iambic pentameter
1 2 3
4 5

• 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

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Rhyme scheme

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

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The two major sonnet forms

• Petrarchan (Italian)
• A
• B
• B
• A Octave (8 lines)
• A
• B
• B
• A The TURN
• C
• D
• E
• C Sestet (6 lines)
• D
• E

• Shakespearean
• A
• B
• A
• B
• C
• D
• C 3 quatrains
• D
• E
• F The TURN
• E
• F
• G Rhyming
• G Couplet

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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.

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The Turn of the Sonnet

• A sonnets turn is the point in the sonnet where
  the poet changes perspective or alters his/her
  approach to description. This often results in a
  sonnet following a position-contrasting
  position type of structure, or occasionally a
  change of heart in the poet at the end of the
  verse. Look at this sonnet as an example
• Notice that the poems turn is a change from
  discussing what Sleep itself is to what the poet
  will offer Sleep as tribute if Sleep comes to him.

• Sonnet 39
• Come, Sleep! O Sleep, the certain knot of
  peace,The baiting-place of wit, the balm of
  woe,The poor man's wealth, the prisoner's
  release,Th' indifferent judge between the high
  and lowWith shield of proof shield me from out
  the pressOf those fierce darts Despair at me
  doth throw!O make in me those civil wars to
  cease! - I will good tribute pay if thou do
  so.Take thou of me smooth pillows, sweetest
  bed,A chamber deaf of noise and blind of
  light,A rosy garland, and a weary headAnd if
  these things, as being thine in right,Move not
  thy heavy grace, thou shalt in me,Livelier than
  elsewhere, Stella's image see.
• Sir Phillip Sydney

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Sonnet 18
A B A B C D C D E F E F G G

• 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.

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Sonnet 18
The octave describes the ways in which the
summers day is inferior to the beloved.

• 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.

The sestet describes the ways in which the
beloved is superior to the summers day.
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Sonnet 29
The diction of the octave implies the speakers
self-pity and depression.

• When in disgrace with fortune and men's eyes
• I all alone beweep my outcast state,
• And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries,
• And look upon myself, and curse my fate,
• Wishing me like to one more rich in hope,
• Featured like him, like him with friends
  possessed,
• Desiring this man's art, and that man's scope,
• With what I most enjoy contented least
• Yet in these thoughts my self almost despising,
• Haply I think on thee, and then my state,
• Like to the lark at break of day arising
• From sullen earth, sings hymns at heaven's gate
• For thy sweet love remembered such wealth
  bringsThat then I scorn to change my state with
  kings.

The sestets diction, in conrast, is joyful.
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The Modern Sonnet
Sonnet All we need is fourteen lines, well,
thirteen now,and after this one just a dozento
launch a little ship on love's storm-tossed
seas,then only ten more left like rows of
beans.How easily it goes unless you get
Elizabethanand insist the iambic bongos must be
playedand rhymes positioned at the ends of
lines,one for every station of the cross.But
hang on here while we make the turninto the
final six where all will be resolved,where
longing and heartache will find an end,where
Laura will tell Petrarch to put down his
pen,take off those crazy medieval tights,blow
out the lights, and come at last to
bed. Billy Collins
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Sonnet 89 Pablo Neruda
I do not love you as if you were salt-rose, or
topaz, or the arrow of carnations the fire
shoots off. I love you as certain dark things
are to be loved, in secret, between the shadow
and the soul. I love you as the plant that never
blooms but carries in itself the light of hidden
flowers thanks to your love a certain solid
fragrance, risen from the earth, lives darkly in
my body. I love you without knowing how, or
when, or from where. I love you
straightforwardly, without complexities or pride
so I love you because I know no other way in
which there is no I or you so intimate that your
hand upon my chest is my hand so intimate that
when you fall asleep it is my eyes that close