Sonnets

1. Sonnets The Literary Legacy of the Renaissance

2. History • Francesco Petrarch (Italian) • Wrote Canzoniere • 366 sonnets dedicated to Laura • Invented the form • Thomas Wyatt adapted it to English • Shakespeare • Milton

3. Sonnets A lyric poem of fourteen iambic pentameter lines with a fixed-scheme of rhyming Italianor Petrarchan English or Shakespearean Originated in Sicily Model for Edmund Spenser and William Shakespeare Form

4. Form Petrarchan sonnets: Shakespearean sonnets: Three quatrains (four lines) abab cdcd efef And a concluding couplet (two lines) gg • two parts: • an octave (8 lines) • rhyming abbaabba • followed by a sestet (6 lines) • rhyming cdecde or some variant.

5. Form • Spenserian Sonnet • Rhyme scheme: abab bcbc cdcd ee • Nine line stanza in Faerie Queen: Ababbcbcc • Less important historically

6. Reading a poem academically • Look at the poem’s title • Read the poem straight through • Look for patterns. • Identify the narrator (or speaker) • Use writing to think • Read the poem again • Find the crucial moments. • Consider form and function. • Look at the language of the poem. • Go deeper or call it quits.

7. Questions to consider • When reading these sonnets, consider the following: • How does a poet use rhymes and rhyme scheme to reinforce what the poem says? • How does a poet take advantage of the turn from octave to sestet, or the shift from one quatrain to another? • How does the final couplet function? • How do the pasterns created by rhyme relate to other patterns created by grammar, word order, the positing or grouping of images, or the movement of logical argument?

8. Edmund Spenser • “The poet’s poet” • Came into service of prominent English noblemen, including Elizabeth’s favorites • The Faerie Queen • Uses medieval myth and legend to assess Elizabethan age