How Do I Love Thee

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How Do I Love Thee? A Study of British
Literature Love Poems
http//www.shakespeare-sonnets.com
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• Writing prompt
• Think about a person you love.
• Write 3-4 sentences about his or her faults.
• Now write 3-4 sentences about why you love that
  person even with those faults.

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Sonnet 130 My mistresss eyes are nothing like
the sunCoral is far more red, than her lips
redIf snow be white, why then her breasts are
dunIf hairs be wires, black wires grow on her
head.I have seen roses damasked, red and
white,But no such roses see I in her cheeksAnd
in some perfumes is there more delightThan in
the breath that from my mistress reeks.I love to
hear her speak, yet well I knowThat music hath a
far more pleasing soundI grant I never saw a
goddess go, My mistress, when she walks, treads
on the groundAnd yet by heaven, I think my love
as rare,As any she belied with false compare.
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• Types of Love Poems
• Narrative Poetry
• Lyric Poetry
• Pastoral poetry
• Odes
• Sonnets
• Others

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• Lyric Poem
• Songlike
• Emotional
• Short
• Presents an experience or a single effect

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• Pastoral poetry
• Deals with the pleasures of the simple country
  life

The Hireling shepherd by William Holman Hunt
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• Ode
• Lyric
• Long
• Formal
• Often written for honor of people, events, or
  nature

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• Sonnet
• 14 lines
• Lyric poetryemotional and rhythmic like
• Traditional sonnets are in iambic pentameter
• Traditional sonnets follow this rhyme pattern--
• abab abab abab cc or abba abba abba cc

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• Sonnet Sequence
• A group of sonnets linked by themes or subject
• Often just numbered

1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8,
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• Shakespeares Sonnet Sequences
• He wrote 154 sonnets
• to a young man telling him to get married
• to a rival poet
• to a dark lady

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• Sir Phillip Sydney (English Renaissance)
• He wrote 108 sonnets in the sonnet sequence
  Astrophel and Stella
• Astrophel himself (Philip)
• Stella Penelope (the girl he loved)
• Astrophel means stargazer
• Stella means star

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• Other characteristics of sonnets and love poems
• Topic is love
• Speakerusually 1st person, the boy in love
• Girl he lovesusually blonde, rosy cheeks, lily
  white skin
• She usually rejects the guy.

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• Lots of nature (roses, sky)
• Often religious references (heaven-sent, my
  angel)
• Touch of Middle English (Lo, Alas, thou)
• Allusionsconnections to other pieces of
  literature, art, music, etc. In sonnets these
  are often to Greek mythology. (Aphrodite,
  Apollo)
• Personificationcomparing an object to a persons
  qualities

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• Similes--comparisons with like or as
• Metaphors--comparisons without like or as
• Imagerylanguage that appeals to the senses
• Apostrophesspeaker speaks to an absent person or
  object
• Hyperbolesexaggerations
• Blazons-praise of a lovers body parts (ex.
  Shakespeares Sonnet 130)

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• Conceitan extended and often elaborate metaphor
  (ex. There is no frigate like a book.)
• Metaphysical Conceita conceit, usually a
  startling one, often used to show off the
  authors knowledge (ex. "A Valediction
  Forbidding MourningJohn Donne-- separated
  lovers are likened to the legs of a compass, the
  leg drawing the circle eventually returning home
  to "the fixed foot.)

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• Metonymyfigure of speech that substitutes
  something for thing actually meant must be
  closely associated with the subject in terms of
  place, time, or background (ex. Friends, Romans,
  Countrymen, lend me your ears. The pen is
  mightier than the sword.)
• Synecdochefigure of speech where a part of
  something stands for the whole (ex. All hands on
  deck! Give us this day our daily bread.)

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• Other love Poetry Masters
• Edmund Spenser15521599 (designed Spenserian
  sonnet form)
• Christopher Marlowe15641593 (also plays, Dr.
  Faustus)
• Ben Jonson15721637 (also plays)

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• John Donne1572?1631 (holy sonnets, Paradise
  Lost)
• George Herbert15931633 (emblematic poetry)
• Andrew Marvelle16211678
• Robert Herrick1591--1674
• Sir John Suckling16091642 (Cavalier poetry)
• Richard lovelace16181657

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• John Milton16081674 (Italian sonnet)
• Robert Burns17591796 (line inspired Of Mice and
  Men)
• William Blake17571827 (Poet/painter, Grendel)
• William Wordsworth17701850
• George Gordon, Lord Byron17881824
• Percy Shelley17921822

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• John Keats17951821
• Alfred Lord Tennyson18091892 (Lady of
  Shallot)
• Robert Browning18121889
• Mary Shelley17971851(Frankenstein)
• Matthew Arnold18221888
• Thomas Hardy1840--1928

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• Writing About a Poem
• Include these parts
• Introduction
• Speaker
• Explication of Poem (1-3 paragraphs)
• Theme/Conclusion

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• I. Introduction
• Write an inverted triangle introduction.
• Include a good thesis statement
• Include the poets full name, the poems title
  (in quotation marks), and poems genre in the
  thesis statement.

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• Speaker
• Identify speaker
• Where is he?
• What is he doing?
• To whom is he speaking?
• Why is he speaking?
• Other info?

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• Explication (Explanation)
• Decide which is the best way to group linesby
  stanzas, couplets, or line by line
• Ex. The first two lines tell about
• In the first stanza the speaker is
• Explain what the lines mean.

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• Identify and explain any literary devices used.
• Check list from lesson.

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• Theme/Conclusion
• Include title and author again.
• Write 3-4 sentences that state the overall
  lesson, theme, message, etc the author is trying
  to make and how it applies to life.