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Shakespearean Sonnets. All That You Needed To Know…and MORE!. What is a Sonnet?. A form of poetry invented in Italy 14 lines with a specific rhyme scheme The topic of most sonnets written in Shakespeare's time was love. Before Shakespeare….
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Shakespearean Sonnets All That You Needed To Know…and MORE!
What is a Sonnet? • A form of poetry invented in Italy • 14 lines with a specific rhyme scheme • The topic of most sonnets written in Shakespeare's time was love.
Before Shakespeare… • The Italian poet Petrarch (1304-1374) popularized the sonnet more than two centuries before Shakespeare was born.
SHAKESPEARE! • William Shakespeare wrote 154 sonnets • Sonnets 1 through 126: address an unidentified young man with outstanding physical and intellectual attributes. • The first 17 of these urge the young man to marry so that he can pass on his superior qualities to a child!
Shakespeare! cont… • In Sonnet 18, Shakespeare declares his own poetry may be all that is necessary to immortalize the young man and his qualities. • In Sonnets 127 - 154, Shakespeare addresses a mysterious "dark lady"–a sensuous, irresistible woman of questionable morals who captivates him........
Shakespeare! cont.. • Shakespeare wrote his sonnets in London in the 1590s during an outbreak of plague that closed theaters and prevented playwrights from staging their dramas.
Anatomy of the Shakespearean Sonnet • Rhyme Scheme of Shakespeare’s sonnets: ABAB CDCD EFEF GG • The first, second, and third stanzas have four lines with alternate rhymes, called quatrains • The fourth stanza is called a couplet.
Sonnet #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.