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Lecture Two. THE English Renaissance: Shakespeare and the sonnet A Vocabulary for Poetry. The English Renaissance: 16-17 th c. A ‘rebirth’ of culture after the devastations of the Black Death The development of the printing press 1450 by Gutenberg
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Lecture Two THE English Renaissance: Shakespeare and the sonnet A Vocabulary for Poetry
The English Renaissance: 16-17th c • A ‘rebirth’ of culture after the devastations of the Black Death • The development of the printing press 1450 by Gutenberg • Increased trade to different parts of the world • A rise in nationalism • 1521, Luther makes a break from the Church of Rome and the Reformation begins: individual and religious freedoms, but also wars of religion • 1533 Henry VIII breaks with the Church of Rome and England becomes split between Catholics and Protestants. • 1558-1603 Elizabeth 1. A time of prosperity, peace and fostering of the arts
Writers of the English Renaissance Poets, Playwrights, Philosophers: Thomas Wyatt Ben Johnson John Donne Philip Sidney Andrew Marvell Queen Elizabeth Edmund Spencer The Faerie Queen Christopher Marlowe Dr Faustus John Webster The Duchess of Malfi Thomas More Utopia
Renaissance Writers John Donne 1572-1631 Poet, essayist, satirist, cleric in Church of England
Renaissance Writers Andrew Marvell 1621-1678 Metaphysical poet and politician ‘To His Coy Mistriss’ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1SpVYlxhtdo
William Shakespeare Shakespeare: 1564-1616 Born in Stratford-upon-Avon. Sonnets Romances: Romeo and Juliet, Comedies: Twelfth Night, As You Like It Tragedies: Macbeth, King Lear Histories: Henry IV, Richard II
The Shakespearean Sonnet Themes of love, fear of mortality, urging of procreation, beauty Wrote 154 sonnets, published in 1609 Shakespearean sonnet: Comprised of 3 quatrians (group of 4 lines) plus a rhyming couplet - 14 lines. Contains a ‘volta’ or turn, usually at the end of the 3rd quatrain where poem begins to move towards resolve Rhyming scheme: ababcdcdefefgg
‘Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?’ Shall I compare thee to a summer's day? Thou art more lovely and more temperate. Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May, And summer's lease hath all too short a date. Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines, And often is his gold complexion dimmed; And every fair from fair sometime declines, By chance, or nature's changing course, untrimmed; But thy eternal summer shall not fade, Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st, Nor shall death brag thou wand'rest in his shade, When in eternal lines to Time thou grow'st. So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see, So long lives this, and this gives life to thee. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T-cuNXsqJZA (4 mins)
A vocabulary for poetry • Repetition: Of words, images, ideas • Alliteration: a repeated sound at the beginning of word • Syntax: the ordering of words within a sentence • Stanza: line division within a poem • Line: differentiate from grammatical sentence
A vocabulary for poetry • Metre (rhythm): eg iambic pentameter (5 metrical feet per line: weak stress/ strong stress): ‘Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?’ • Rhyme: sound repetitions at the end of words/lines • Consonance: repeated syllable sounds, ‘slip,slap’ • Assonance: repeated vowel sounds ‘The Lotus blooms’
A Vocabulary for poetry • Enjambment: where the grammatical sense of a sentence/phrase runs on from one line to the next • Caesura: where a poetic line is end-stopped in the middle • Stanza: any grouping of poetic lines • Quatrain: 4 lines within a sonnet
A vocabulary for poetry • Octave: 8 lines within Petrarchan sonnet • Sestet: 6 lines • Rhyming couplet: conclusion of sonnet • Volta: the point of change within sonnet
Poetic Forms • Sonnet: 14 lines • Ballad: tells a story, links to music • Lyric: short, subjective/personal, also linked to song • Epic: long narrative, usually with heroic subject matter
Poetic forms • Villanelle: cycling repetitions of lines • Free Verse: no strict metrical or rhyme patterns • Web site for literary terms: http://web.cn.edu/kwheeler/lit_terms.html