The Sonnet

1. “Sonetto” meaning little sound or song in Italian The Sonnet

2. History First developed at the court of Emperor Frederick II in Sicily Used by most Italian poets of the Middle Ages, notably Dante (13th Century) Italian sonnets were often about courtly love, where the women were beautiful yet unattainable Sir Thomas Wyatt and the Earl of Surry discovered the form in the 16th Century In England the form changed. Edmund Spenser and William Shakespeare coined their own versions. Shakespeare wrote 154 sonnets

3. Style Often the grammar of the lines is fractured to accommodate the rhyme and rhythm. Enjambment works to help keep the rhyme in the background. The Shakespearean rhyme scheme tends to be the easiest for the English language.

4. Form 14 lines long Usually about love Often has a volta – a change in thought – after the eight line Three main variations on the rhyme scheme Petrarchan,Spenserian, Shakespearean Usual form components Octave / octet = 8 lines and a Sestet / sextet = 6 lines or 3 Quatrains = 4 lines eachand a Rhyming couplet = 2 lines

5. PetrarchanSpenserian Shakespearean A A A BB B B A A A B B A B C B CD B B C ACD C CE DD F C/E CE CD F DE G C/EE G

6. Iambic foot or Iamb Is two syllables An unstressed followed by a stressed Shown here using a dash and a backslash There are five iambic feet in one line of a sonnet = a rhythm called iambic pentameter. The Kennedy Center

7. An example of scansion To scan a line is to mark the stressed and unstressed syllables in a line of poetry. Scansion takes practice and patience. A dictionary is a good way to double check that you have it right.

8. Sonnet CXVI/116 by Shakespeare Let me not to the marriage of true minds Admit impediments. Love is not love Which alters when it alteration finds, Or bends with the remover to remove. O no! it is an ever-fixed mark That looks on tempests and is never shaken; It is the star to every wand’ring bark, Whose worth’s unknown, although his height be taken. Love’s not Time’s fool, though rosy lips and cheeks Within his bending sickle’s compass come; Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks, But bears it out even to the edge of doom. If this be error and upon me prov’d, I never writ, nor no man ever lov’d.

9. Listen to various sonnets • Why? • To show you how they can be read in different ways. • To share with you the passion many feel for the form and content. • Check out sonnets on YouTube – you’ll be amazed at the number and variety of people who’ve chosen to post videos. • Notebook file “sonnets”

10. Your Sonnet Should have the following elements 14 lines 10 syllables per line A rhyme scheme that matches one of those presented May have The iambic rhythm, but does not need to. A volta

11. Whoso List to Hunt [1]Sir Thomas Wyatt the Elder Whoso list[2]to hunt, I know where is an hind, But as for me, alas, I may no more. The vain travail hath wearied me so sore I am of them that farthest cometh behind. Yet may I, by no means, my wearied mind Draw from the deer, but as she fleeth afore, Fainting I follow. I leave off therefore, Since in a net I seek to hold the wind. Who list her hunt, I put him out of doubt, As well as I, may spend his time in vain. And graven with diamonds in letters plain There is written, her fair neck round about “Noli me tangere, for Caesar’s I am, And wild for to hold, though I seem tame.” [1]An adaptation of Petrarch, Rim 190, perhaps influenced by commentators on Petrarch, who said that Noli me tangere quia Caesaris sum (“Touch me not, for I am Caesar’s”) was inscribed on the collars of Caesar’s hinds which were then set free and were presumably safe from hunters. Wyatt’s sonnet is usually supposed to refer to Anne Boleyn, in whom Henry VIII became interested in 1536. [2]Cares

12. Sources The Kennedy Center, “Shakespeare: Iambic Pentameter, the Beat of the 16th Century”, accessed Nov 25, 2008. http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=Ec_pDV07pQg&feature=related Handouts from previous teachers, Ms. Isaacs or Ms. Riddel.