Sonnet Forms

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Sonnet Forms
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Sonnet in the Renaissance

• From sonneto meaning little sound or song
• One of the most difficult forms to master because
  of the strict patterns of meter and rhyme
• Two major forms
• Petrarchan
• Shakespearean

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Themes

• Bittersweet love
• Carpe Diem
• The best things in life are youth, love, and
  beauty
• All of these will fade, so get them while you can
• Regret in old age

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Carpe Diem Examples

• To the Virgins
• Gather ye rosebuds while ye may/ Old Time is
  still a-flying/ And this same flower that smiles
  today/ Tomorrow will be dying Robert Herrick
• To His Coy Mistress
• But at my back I always hear/ Times winged
  Chariot hurrying near/ . . . The Graves a fine
  and private place,/ but none, I think, do there
  embraceAndrew Marvell

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Literary Techniques

• Meter
• Enjambment
• run-on lines
• From the French for to straddle
• Creates suspense
• De-emphasizes the rhyme scheme
• Rhyme scheme

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More Techniques

• Similies
• cheeks like roses
• eyes like stars
• Metaphors
• Captive birds
• Wounded stags
• Moths drawn to a flame

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Petrarch (1304-1374)

• Italian poet who was born with the Renaissance
• Struggled to balance his religion with his
  ambition
• His love for Laura provided the theme of
  bittersweet love for many European sonnets

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Petrarchs Form

• An octave followed by a sestet
• Perfectly suited for a two part statement
• Change between the two parts is called the
  volta or turn
• Rhyme scheme
• abba abba ccd eed

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Shakespeare (1564-1616)

• Wrote a sonnet sequence consisting of 154 poems
• Most are directed to a young nobleman, a friend
  of the speaker
• The later sonnets in this series are directed to
  Shakespeares dark lady

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Shakespeares Form

• Three quatrains followed by a couplet
• Rhythm
• Meter, usually penta-meter
• Foot, usually iambic
• Rhyme scheme
• abab cdcd efef gg

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Analyze This

• Hello, Love, I am yours forever.
• To love God first and second those
• And then to gain the sweetest Rose
• Has been my chief endeavor.
• Toward this end, five years persevered
• I to gain the flower I chose.
• Now spotless bloomed in beauty clothed
• Is plucked forth, yet dying never.
• What then of other homes for her?
• What nourishment and watering rain
• Shall grow her strong and guard from pain?
• This sun shall shine and this dew shower.
• Determined hearts are not often barren.
• Now I have thee, and thou me, my lovely Rose of
  Sharon.