THE SONNET FORM The Literary Renaissance Oh no…my mistress’s eyes are nothing like the sun! What, then, can I possibly write?

The Sonnet: Requirements  14 lines  Subject: focus on personal thoughts and feelings  Variable rhyme scheme  Meter varies, but for Shakespeare: Iambic Pentameter (5 units of meter, unstressed followed by stressed syllable) My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun

Petrarchan Sonnet (Italian)  Italian poet ( )  Father of sonnet form  Expression of emotion and love  Wrote over 300 to a beautiful woman he could not have (Laura)  2-part structure: Octave (8 lines, abbaabba), followed by a Sestet, (last 6 lines, cdcdcd or cdecde)  Octave – presents situation/problem  Sestet – Resolves/draws conclusions about situation

This is Francesco Petrarch. If I were Laura, I would also ignore him.

English/Shakespearean Sonnet  Sir Thomas Wyatt (1530s) and Henry Howard first altered the Petrarchan form’s rhyme scheme to make the English sonnet  1600s – Sonnets are most popular poem forms in English  Shakespeare’s sonnet (published 154) To the fair youth (young man), #s1-126 To the Dark Lady, #s To his rival poet, #s Love and philosophical issues His objects of affection were never perfect – celebrated humanity at its most real level

English/Shakespearean Sonnet  Themes: Time, death, beauty, change  Form: Three Quatrains (groups of four lines), followed by a rhyming couplet (two lines that have end rhyme) Each quatrain focuses on a particular image, building the story Rhyming couplet brings the ideas together/provides the final comment.

The Fair Youth v. The Dark Lady

Shakespeare’s Sonnet #18 Shall I compare thee to a summer's day? A Thou art more lovely and more temperate:B Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,A And summer's lease hath all too short a date: B Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,C And often is his gold complexion dimm'd; D And every fair from fair sometime declines,C By chance or nature's changing course untrimm'd;D But thy eternal summer shall not fadeE Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest;F Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st in his shade,E When in eternal lines to time thou growest: F So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,G So long lives this and this gives life to thee.G

Spenserian Sonnet (English)  Edmund Spenser  Sonnet Sequence “Amoretti”, or “little intimate tokens of love” (1595)  Progression models that of a traditional courtship  Partly autobiographical; thought to be written during his courtship with his second wife.  Difference from Shakespearean Sonnet: Rhyme scheme of quatrains – interlocking rhyme scheme (abab/bcbc/cdcd/ee)

Edmund Spenser and Elizabeth Boyle Marry me!! I guess...we do have the same weird collar...

Words to Know  Couplet – group of two lines  Quatrain – group of four lines  Octave – group of eight lines  Sestet – group of six lines  Volta - turn or dramatic shift in the poem  Lyrical poem – expresses personal emotions or feelings, usually in first person, musical quality  Sonnet – 14-line lyric poem with complicated rhyme scheme (based on its origin)