An Introduction to Sonnets

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An Introduction to Sonnets

• The word sonnet is Italian for
• little song

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What is a sonnet?

• Sonnets are poems that meet the following rules
• All sonnets are 14 lines long.
• Sonnets in English are written in iambic
  pentameter, which means that each line has 10
  syllables, alternating in an unstressed/stressed
  pattern.
• Sonnets follow a predetermined rhyme scheme the
  rhyme pattern determines if the sonnet is
  Petrarchan (Italian), Shakespearean, or
  Spenserian.
• All sonnets are characterized by a turn located
  at a designated point in the sonnet.

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History of the Sonnet

• The sonnet began in Italy, where the poet
  Francesco Petrarch first established it as a
  serious form of poetry. Petrarch wrote a large
  collection of sonnets addressed to a young woman
  named Laura he saw one afternoon at church. She
  was not interested, but he didnt let that stop
  him, and proceeded to publish some 260 sonnets
  about herfollowed by another hundred or so after
  her death. Petrarch is, quite possibly, the
  first recorded literary stalker.
• In these sonnets, Petrarch used witty plays on
  Lauras name (lorothe golden one or the golden
  references to laurel trees, etc.) to both honor
  and attack the object of his affection. He would
  praise her for her beauty in one sonnet, then
  condemn her as an icy monster who rejects his
  love in another. Laura was completely unable to
  respond to these poems, as women did not write,
  and her public persona was thus basically
  Petrarchs to define.

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• What tongue can her perfections tell,
• In whose each part all pens may dwell?
• Her hair fine threads of finest gold,
• In curled knots mans thought to hold
• But that her forehead says, In me
• A whiter beauty you may see
• Whiter indeed, more white than snow,
• Which on cold winters face doth grow.
• That doth present those even brows
• Whose equal line their angles bows,
• Like to the moon when after change
• Her horned head abroad doth range
• And arches be to heavenly lids,
• Whose wink each bold attempt forbids.
• For the black stars those spheres contain,
• The matchless pair, even praise doth stain.
• Sir Philip Sidney

• Petrarch also refined a particular type of sonnet
  known as the blazon (blah-zohn). A blazon is a
  sonnet that catalogues the features or traits of
  its subject, usually a woman, and describes them
  using hyperbole, metaphor, or simile. A typical
  example of a blazon is Sir Philip Sidneys verse
• Note how Sidney lists off the elements of the
  womans facehair, forehead, eyebrows, eyelids,
  and finally, eyes.
• This is the source of the your eyes are like
  deep pools I could dive into, etc. school of
  poetry, which, while occasionally flattering,
  should be noted as being problematic as well, as
  it reduces the subject to nothing more than a
  collection of good-looking body parts. This
  objectification of the subject, usually a woman,
  has in turn contributed to the impossible
  standards of beauty for women today, as well as
  the problem of seeing women only as objects of
  sexual desire.

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Some poets would go on to play with this idea and
take it a ridiculous extreme, while others used
it as source for satire

• 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 damasked, 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.
• William Shakespeare, Sonnet CXXX

Giuseppi Archimboldos Summer
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The two major sonnet forms

• Petrarchan (Italian)
• A
• B
• B
• A Octave (8 lines)
• A
• B
• B
• A The TURN
• C
• D
• E
• C Sestet (6 lines)
• D
• E

• Shakespearean
• A
• B
• A
• B
• C
• D
• C 3 quatrains
• D
• E
• F The TURN
• E
• F
• G Rhyming
• G Couplet

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The Turn of the Sonnet

• A sonnets turn is the point in the sonnet where
  the poet changes perspective or alters his/her
  approach to description. This often results in a
  sonnet following a position-contrasting
  position type of structure, or occasionally a
  change of heart in the poet at the end of the
  verse. Look at this sonnet as an example
• Notice that the poems turn is a change from
  discussing what Sleep itself is to what the poet
  will offer Sleep as tribute if Sleep comes to him.

• Come Sleep, O Sleep!
• Come, Sleep! O Sleep, the certain knot of
  peace,The baiting-place of wit, the balm of
  woe,The poor man's wealth, the prisoner's
  release,Th' indifferent judge between the high
  and lowWith shield of proof shield me from out
  the pressOf those fierce darts Despair at me
  doth throw!O make in me those civil wars to
  cease! - I will good tribute pay if thou do
  so.Take thou of me smooth pillows, sweetest
  bed,A chamber deaf of noise and blind of
  light,A rosy garland, and a weary headAnd if
  these things, as being thine in right,Move not
  thy heavy grace, thou shalt in me,Livelier than
  elsewhere, Stella's image see.

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Nothing is ever easy.

• Sonnet 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.

• Note that at times the turn does NOT occur in the
  traditional spot. Instead of occurring at the
  normal line 12-13 in this sonnet by Shakespeare,
  the turn instead occurs between lines 8-9where
  youd normally find the turn for an Italian
  sonnet.

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Sonnet
Analyze this!
All we need is fourteen lines, well, thirteen
now,and after this one just a dozento launch a
little ship on love's storm-tossed seas,then
only ten more left like rows of beans.How easily
it goes unless you get Elizabethanand insist the
iambic bongos must be playedand rhymes
positioned at the ends of lines,one for every
station of the cross.But hang on here while we
make the turninto the final six where all will
be resolved,where longing and heartache will
find an end,where Laura will tell Petrarch to
put down his pen,take off those crazy medieval
tights,blow out the lights, and come at last to
bed. Billy Collins
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Sonnet 17 Pablo Neruda
I do not love you as if you were salt-rose, or
topaz, or the arrow of carnations the fire
shoots off. I love you as certain dark things
are to be loved, in secret, between the shadow
and the soul. I love you as the plant that never
blooms but carries in itself the light of hidden
flowers thanks to your love a certain solid
fragrance, risen from the earth, lives darkly in
my body. I love you without knowing how, or
when, or from where. I love you
straightforwardly, without complexities or pride
so I love you because I know no other way in
which there is no I or you so intimate that your
hand upon my chest is my hand so intimate that
when you fall asleep it is my eyes that close
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Now you choose a sonnet to recite on Friday!

• Use the internet to search for a sonnet that you
  would like to recite
• Create a word document with the sonnet title and
  your name- save it to my homework folder
• Write an introduction that states the author, its
  form, meter, rhyme scheme, and key literary
  elements, and an aspect of the poem that comes
  through after multiple readings
• Print your sonnet introduction so you may
  practice reciting it!