THE SONNET
A sonnet is a fourteen-line lyric poem, usually written in iambic pentameter, that has one
of several rhyme schemes. There are two major types of sonnets. The oldest sonnet form is the
Italian sonnet, also called the Petrarchan sonnet (after the fourteenth century Italian poet
Francesco Petrarch, who popularized the sonnet form. The Petrarchan sonnet is divided into two
parts: an eight line octave, with the rhyme scheme abbaabba, and a six line sestet, with the rhyme
scheme cdecde (or the variant cdcdcd or cdccdc). The octave usually presents a problem or poses a
question, or expresses an idea, which the sestet then resolves, answers, or drives home. John
Donne’s sonnets and John Keats's "On First Looking, Into Chapman’s Homer.” are written in the
Italian form which is the most widely used form of sonnet.
The other major sonnet form which was used by William Shakespeare is called the
Shakespearean sonnet or the English sonnet. It generally (but not always) has three four-line units
or quatrains, followed by a concluding two-line unit or couplet. The organization of thought in the
Shakespearean sonnet usually corresponds to this structure. The three quatrains often express related
ideas or examples, while the couplet sums up the poet’s conclusion or message. The most common
rhyme scheme for the Shakespearean sonnet is abab cdcd efef gg.
I
A third type of sonnet, the Spenserian sonnet, was developed by Edmund Spenser. Like the
Shakespearean sonnet, it is divided into three quatrains and a couplet, but is uses a rhyme scheme
that links the quatrains: abab bcbc cdcd ee.
A group of sonnets on a related theme or dedicated to a particular person is called a sonnet
sequence or a sonnet cycle. Such sequences include Shakespeare's sonnets to the Dark Lady,
Spencer's Amoretti, Elizabeth Barrett Browning's Sonnets from the Portuguese, and Dylan Thomas's
Altarwise by Owl-light.
Understanding the Petrarchan Sonnet-Read the Petrarchan Sonnet “Whoso List To Hunt “ by Sir Thomas Wyatt, then answer the
following questions:
1.
The rhyme scheme of the octave in "Whoso List to Hunt" is
a. ababcdcd
b. abbaabba
c. ababcbcb
2.
The rhyme scheme of the sestet is
a. cddcee
b. cdecde
c. cdcdcd
3.
The problem this sonnet reveals is the speaker's
a. love of hunting
b. confidence in winning his lady's love
c. despair at his chances of winning his lady's love
4.
In the sestet, the speaker in the poem tells
a. who the hind is
b. how to win her love
c. why his efforts were futile
5.
The speaker's answer to the problem is to tell other suitors not to try to win her because he
believes that they
a. cannot hope to compete with Caesar
b. can hardly succeed if he failed
c. are not rich enough
Understanding the English Sonnet-Now read the sonnet, “When in Disgrace with Fortune and Men’s Eyes” by William
Shakespeare ( 340). Then answer the questions about the sonnet.
1. What is the speaker's mood in the first quatrain?
2. In the second quatrain, how does the speaker view other people's lives?
3. What change occurs in the third quatrain?
4. What does the concluding couplet mean?
5. What is the rhyme scheme?
6. Scan a couple lines of the poem.
REVIEW-- A sonnet is a fourteen-line poem, usually in iambic pentameter. The two main kinds
of sonnets, the Petrarchan and Shakespearean, differ in rhyme scheme and in the way the theme
is developed. The Petrarchan sonnet, of which "Whoso List to Hunt" is an example, is divided into
two parts: an eight-line octave and a six-line sestet. The octave poses a question or problem that
the sestet answers or comments upon.
Indicating the metrical pattern (beat) of a poem by marking the stressed syllable with a symbol
and the unstressed syllable with a symbol is called scanning the poem or scansion.:
Tyger! Tyger! Burning bright
In the forests of the night
(William Blake, “The Tyger”)
SONNET WORKSHEET : IMITATING
SHAKESPEARE-RHYMES, RHYTHMS,
AND UNUSUAL ARRANGEMENTS
RHYMES
Sometimes Shakespeare arranged words, in unexpected ways because he wanted to put
words that rhyme at the ends of his lines. Consider, for example, his arrangements in the following
passage (These lines, are from the final scene of As You Like It, meant to be spoken or sung by
Hymen, god of marriage):
Then is there mirth in heaven
When earthly things made even
Atone together.
Good Duke, receive thy daughter;
Hymen from heaven brought her,
Yea, brought her hither,
That thou mightst join her hand with his
Whose heart within his bosom is.
(5.4.102-9)
Note that each line rhymes with one other line (in Shakespeare day “heaven” rhymed with “even,”
"together" rhymed with "hither," "daughter" rhymed with “brought her," and "his" rhymed with
"is.” Note, too, that Shakespeare created some unusual sequences of words in order to put rhyming
words at the ends of the lines. Instead of “Hymen brought her from heaven," we find "Hymen from
heaven brought her,” and instead of "is within his bosom,” we find "within his bosom is.”
An Example
To become more comfortable with Shakespeare's work--to make the processes that underlie that
work more familiar, you too can arrange words in uncommon ways to create rhymes. First, create
an ordinary sentence that includes two words that rhyme: a. sentence such as "We have fun in June
when the sun shines on flowers." Next, arrange the words of the sentence to form two lines, and put
the rhyming words at the ends of the lines. For example, you might transform the previous example
sentence into this:
In June when shines the sun on flowers, we have fun.
EXERCISE ONE:
1. Another sentence on which you may practice is this one:
The snow comes in January; wild winds blow, and the trees are bare.
In the blanks that follow, arrange the words of the sentence just provided into two lines of poetry.
Let the first line end with "snow" and the second one with "blow." As you rearrange, do not add,
delete, or change any word.
___________________________________________________________________________snow.
___________________________________________________________________________blow.
2. For more practice in putting rhyming words at the ends of lines, start with the following
collection of words:
Then they did weep for sudden joy, and I sung for sorrow, that such a king should play bopeep and go among the fools.
From the sentence just provided, create four lines for a song. End the first line with "weep," the
second with "sung," the third with "bo-peep," and the fourth with "among." As you rearrange the
words to make these rhymes, do not add, delete, or change any word.
____________________________________________________________________________weep
____________________________________________________________________________sung
_________________________________________________________________________bo-peep
__________________________________________________________________________among.
(To compare your result with the original lines, see King Lear, [I. iv.166-69]).
POETIC RHYTHMS
Shakespeare also arranged words in unexpected ways in order to create rhythmical lines.
Particularly common are unusual arrangements that he created in order to produce lines of blank
verse: unrhymed lines, each written with a standard line of ten syllables as a referent. Nearly all of
the Shakespearean passages are written in blank verse.
Whenever he was writing blank verse, Shakespeare wrote with a background rhythm in
mind, and in writing almost every line, he tried to produce a rhythm that was similar to, although not
identical with, the background rhythm.. This background rhythm results from a regular alternation
of unstressed and stressed syllables. You can create this background rhythm by saying aloud the ten
syllables that follow (stress each "DAH” as you read):
da DAH da DAH da DAH da DAH da DAH
Since the background rhythm results from the careful placing of stresses, and since
Shakespeare wanted to create a similar rhythm in nearly every line of blank verse, he was usually
very careful about the of his stressed syllables. He usually did not want the stresses in a line to
appear in locations greatly different from the locations that stresses have in the background rhythm.
Consequently, he often chose to avoid certain arrangements of syllables, and therefore, certain
arrangements of words.For example, Shakespeare chose to avoid the following arrangements of
words:
And they bore her up awhile mermaid-like.
This is a line that has a fairly ordinary arrangement of words, but it is a line that Shakespeare did not
write. The stressed syllables--"bore," “up," “awhile," “mer-," and "like"--appear in places too
different from the places where the DAHs appear in "da DAH da DAH da DAH da DAH da DAH."
The following comparison will make the differences obvious:
and
da
they BORE
DAH da
her UP
DAH da
aWHILE
DAH da
MER- maid- LIKE
DAH da
DAH
As you can tell when you amplify the emphases on "bore," “up,” "mer-," and "like" and try to move
with the line, the line has no rhythmical character. We could not dance to it.
So, instead of writing that line, Shakespeare created one, for Hamlet, in which the words have a
rather unusual arrangement. That line is:
And mermaid-like awhile they bore her up....
(4.7.175)
The stresses here do create a satisfactory pattern. Again, a comparison will be useful.
and
da
MER- maid- LIKE a- WHILE
DAH da
DAH da , DAH
they BORE
da
DAH
her
da
UP
DAH
Clearly, this line, with its peculiar arrangement of words, does have rhythmical character. We could
dance to it much more easily than we could dance to the line that Shakespeare did not write.
Exercise Two
To help you try your hand at forming lines of blank verse, I give you more lines that Shakespeare
did not write.
Directions: Rearrange the words of each of the four lines below. As you do so, create a pattern
of stressed and unstressed syllables that resembles "da DAH da DAH da DAH da DAH da
DAH." In each line, I have italicized the word or words that you need to move in order to
create a rhythmical of syllables. As you rearrange, do not add any word, omit any word, or
change any word to another word. --Note that as you make each line more poetic, you also
make the arrangement of the words less ordinary, more strange.
1. If such calms come after every tempest.
_____________________________________________________________________________
2. Now confusion hath made his masterpiece.
_____________________________________________________________________________
3. Let all the battlements fire their ordnance.
_____________________________________________________________________________
4. But soft! What light breaks through yonder window?
_____________________________________________________________________________
5. Too dear for my possessing, thou are, Farewell!
_____________________________________________________________________________
6. And thy estimate like enough thou knowest
_____________________________________________________________________________
7. More I could tell, but I dare not say more.
_____________________________________________________________________________
8. And the choir of echoes answer so still.
_____________________________________________________________________________
9. Sadly this dismal cry rings in her ear.
________________________________________________________________________________
10. create your own line of iambic pentameter:
________________________________________________________________________________
Writing Assignment:
Create your own sonnet over any topic.
This assignment is due _____________________________