Sonnets
You Wrote Them
(If You Were “FRESH”)
The Sonneteers
Spenser
Petrarch
Shakespeare
Gray
Milton
Browning
Wordsworth
Shakespeare's sonnets were published in 1609, but most
of them were written much earlier, probably in the 1590’s,
when Sir Philip Sidney’s Astrophel and Stella established
the vogue of the Elizabethan sonnet cycle (a group of
sonnets that together produce an overall message). There
are 154 sonnets in all, and together they suggest a “story”,
although the exact details of that “story” are elusive
(cannot get a hold of them) and mysterious. The first 126
sonnets are addressed mainly to a young man of great
beauty and promise. The speaker expresses his affection
and admiration for the young man, urges him to marry
and perpetuate (continue) his virtues (good qualities)
through children, and warns him about the destructive
power of time, age, and moral weakness. Sonnets 76-86 of
this group are concerned with a rival poet who has also
addressed poems to the young man. Sonnets 127-152 are
addressed to a lady with dark hair, eyes, and complexion.
Both the speaker and the young man seem to be involved
with her romantically.
Shakespeare’s Sonnet Cycle:
The Fair Young Man - 1 through 126
Rival Poet - 76 through 86
The Dark Lady - 127 through 152
There has always been much speculation
(guesswork) about the biographical meaning
of the “story” of Shakespeare’s sonnets, but
no one has ever produced a convincing
theory connecting it with the facts of
Shakespeare’s life. The situations and
relationships suggested in the sonnets are
best understood as the fictional means
through which Shakespeare explores
universal (common) questions about time
and death, about beauty and moral integrity
(uprightness), about love, and about poetry
itself.
Romeo and Juliet: Prologue to Act I
Two households, both alike in dignity,
(In fair Verona, where we lay our scene),
From ancient grudge break to new mutiny,
Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean.
From forth the fatal loins of these two foes
A pair of star-cross'd lovers take their life;
Whose misadventured piteous overthrows
Doth with their death bury their parents' strife.
The fearful passage of their death-mark'd love,
And the continuance of their parents' rage,
Which, but their children's end, nought could remove,
Is now the two hours' traffic of our stage;
The which, if you with patient ears attend,
What here shall miss, our toil shall strive to mend.
Romeo and Juliet: Prologue to Act I
Two households, both alike in dignity,
(In fair Verona, where we lay our scene),
From ancient grudge break to new mutiny,
Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean.
From forth the fatal loins of these two foes
A pair of star-cross'd lovers take their life;
Whose misadventured piteous overthrows
Doth with their death bury their parents' strife.
The fearful passage of their death-mark'd love,
And the continuance of their parents' rage,
Which, but their children's end, nought could remove,
Is now the two hours' traffic of our stage;
The which, if you with patient ears attend,
What here shall miss, our toil shall strive to mend.
How to Tell Who Wrote It
Spenser
Petrarch
Shakespeare
ABBA ABBA CDE CDE
ABAB BCBC CDCD EE
ABAB CDCD EFEF GG
Romeo and Juliet: Prologue to Act I
Two households, both alike in dignity,
(In fair Verona, where we lay our scene),
From ancient grudge break to new mutiny,
Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean.
A
B
A
B
From forth the fatal loins of these two foes
A pair of star-cross'd lovers take their life;
Whose misadventured piteous overthrows
Doth with their death bury their parents' strife.
C
D
C
D
The fearful passage of their death-mark'd love,
And the continuance of their parents' rage,
Which, but their children's end, nought could remove,
Is now the two hours' traffic of our stage;
E
F
E
F
The which, if you with patient ears attend,
What here shall miss, our toil shall strive to mend.
G
G
One unit of rhythm is
called a foot !
foot = two syllables
no-thing
to-night
IAMBIC =
Unstressed syllable
followed by a
stressed syllable
PENTAMETER =
Five feet
Two house-holds, both a-like in dig-ni-ty,
(In fair Ver-on-a, where we lay our scene),
From ancient grudge break to new mutiny,
Where ci-vil blood makes ci-vil hands un-clean.
Soleasi Nel Mio Cor
She ruled in beauty o'er this heart of mine,
A noble lady in a humble home,
And now her time for heavenly bliss has come,
'Tis I am mortal proved, and she divine.
The soul that all its blessings must resign,
And love whose light no more on earth finds room,
Might rend the rocks with pity for their doom,
Yet none their sorrows can in words enshrine;
They weep within my heart; and ears are deaf
Save mine alone, and I am crushed with care,
And naught remains to me save mournful breath.
Assuredly but dust and shade we are,
Assuredly desire is blind and brief,
Assuredly its hope but ends in death.
XVIII (18)
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 dimm'd;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance or nature's changing course untrimm'd;
But thy eternal summer shall not fade
Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest;
Nor 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.
I (1)
Happy ye leaves! whenas those lily hands,
Which hold my life in their dead doing might,
Shall handle you, and hold in love's soft bands,
Like captives trembling at the victor's sight.
And happy lines! on which, with starry light,
Those lamping eyes will deign sometimes to look,
And read the sorrows of my dying sprite,
Written with tears in heart's close bleeding book.
And happy rhymes! bathed in the sacred brook
Of Helicon, whence she derived is,
When ye behold that angel's blessed look,
My soul's long lacked food, my heaven's bliss.
Leaves, lines, and rhymes seek her to please alone,
Whom if ye please, I care for other none.
XXX (30)
My love is like to ice, and I to fire;
how comes it then that this her cold so great
is not dissolv'd through my so hot desire,
but harder grows the more I her intreat?
Or how comes it that my exceeding heat
is not delayed by her heart frozen cold:
but that I burn much more in boiling sweat,
and feel my flames augmented manifold?
What more miraculous thing may be told
that fire which all things melts, should harden ice:
and ice which is congeal'd with senseless cold,
should kindle fire by wonderful device.
Such is the power of love in gentle mind,
that it can alter all the course of kind.
CXXX (130)
My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun;
Coral is far more red than her lips' red;
If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;
If 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 cheeks;
And in some perfumes is there more delight
Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.
I love to hear her speak, yet well I know
That music hath a far more pleasing sound;
I grant I never saw a goddess go;
My 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.
XXIX (29)
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,
Featur'd like him, like him with friends possess'd,
Desiring this man's art, and that man's scope,
With what I most enjoy contented least:
Yet in these thoughts myself 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 remember'd such wealth brings
That then I scorn to change my state with kings'.
XXIX (29)
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,
Featur'd like him, like him with friends possess'd,
Desiring this man's art, and that man's scope,
With what I most enjoy contented least:
Yet in these thoughts myself 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 remember'd such wealth brings
That then I scorn to change my state with kings'.