Nearly Everything You Wanted to Know About Sonnets

1. Nearly Everything You Wanted to Know About Sonnets . . . .And Probably Didn’t Want to Ask. . . .

2. Sonnets • 14 line lyric • Single stanza • Iambic pentameter line • Intricate rhyme scheme • Often written in narrative sequences—sonnet sequence • Often concerned with love and desire • Diversity of sonnet models

3. Italian/Petrarchan Sonnet • Named for Petrarch • 2 main units • Octave—eight line section—rhyming abbaabba • Sestet—six line section—rhyming cdecde or variation (e.g. cdccdc) • Octave presents problem or poses scenario that is answered or resolved in sestet • Becomes imitated in English by Milton, Wordsworth, and Rossetti

4. English Sonnet • Also known as Shakespearean sonnet • Three quatrains (4 line poetic section) with a final couplet • abab cdcd efef gg • Presents three views of perspectives on a problem or scenario with epigrammatic conclusion in final couplet • Flourishes in Renaissance—time of cultural renewal and revival in which classical texts are rediscovered and re-valued

5. Spenserian Sonnet • Minor variation of English sonnet • Still thee quatrains and final couplet • Quatrains linked by continuing rhyme • abab bcbc cdcd ee

6. Poetic features of sonnet • Conceits—yoking together of disparate concepts or images • Metaphor—expression in which one kind of concept or activity is compared or applied to notably distinct kind of concept or activity (e.g. he’s a fox) • Metonymy—literal term for one concept or action is used to denote closely related concept or action (e.g. crown)

7. Poetic features of sonnet • Synecdoche—apart of concept or thing is used to denote the whole of concept or thing (40 head [of cattle]) • Petrarchan conceit—conceits (usually about women, love, and beauty) used in love poems that were original when Petrarch used them but became hackneyed and parodied by later English writers

8. Things we see in the sonnet • Organic form—internal form, structure, balance, and organization • Stock characters—recognizably conventional figures • Stock responses—recognizably conventional responses • Stock situations—recognizably conventional settings

9. Things we see in the sonnet • Antitype—New Testament correlatives to Old Testament Types • Blazon—Poetic technique in which individual (often woman) is imagined or portrayed by partitioning the body into specified metaphors; mock-heraldic description • Bombast—pretentious, verbose, and inflated diction that is notably inappropriate to the matter it signifies

10. Parts of a Metaphor Description The metaphor comes in two main parts, classically known as the tenor and the vehicle, which are connected by a verb. Tenor The tenor in a metaphor is the original subject. If I say 'you are a dog', then you are the tenor. If I say 'It's a dog day', then the tenor is the day. Vehicle The vehicle in a metaphor is both the words and concepts that are invoked by the words.

11. Tenor & Vehicle continued Connecting verb The tenor and the vehicle are generally connected by a verb that somehow equates them. The verb 'to be' is by far the most common verb used, as it effectively says 'the tenor is the vehicle'. Dimension The vehicle has a number of dimensions, attributes or variables which may be mapped or transferred back onto the tenor and hence create new meaning.  P.S. This is not JUST limited to Sonnets; this information applies to Metaphor in general. . . .

12. Tenor / Vehicle continued Tenor Vehicle Dimensions Love Island Separated / Idyllic Time Money Trade / Interchange House Home Safety / Familiarity To persuade To plant To put in / To Nurture Opportunity A Thing Can be examined / Grasped Anger Storm Energy / Danger

13. Vehicle & Tenor continued • In analysis of discourse and the understanding of metaphor, the separation of tenor and vehicle is a basic first step. This is followed by understanding the dimensions of the vehicle and how these are mapped back onto the tenor and how meaning is changed or extended as a result. • A good metaphor has many dimensions that map well into the tenor. A bad metaphor has dimensions that either do not map back to the tenor or, worse, create a distorted understanding. • Note that in the rest of this section on metaphor, the tenor is generally called the 'subject', simply because this wording is easier to understand

14. Shakespeare’s Poetry • Shakespeare wrote 154 Shakespearean Sonnets • Shakespeare also wrote poetry that didn’t follow the Shakespearean sonnet format however he is most famous for the Shakespearean Sonnet.

15. Shakespeare’sPoetry • Shakespeare is know for his invention of the Shakespearean sonnet. • This sonnets are 14 lines long. • Have an ABAB, CDCD, EFEF, GG rhyme scheme. • Are all written in Iambic Pentameter. • Iambic Pentameter has 10 syllables per line and follow an unstressed/stressed pattern. • The last two rhyming lines are called a Heroic Couplet

16. Sonnet 118

17. A 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 dimm'd;And every fair from fair sometime declines,By chance or nature's changing course untrimm'd;But thy eternal summer shall not fadeNor lose possession of that fair thou owest;Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st in his shade,When in eternal lines to time thou growest:So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,So long lives this and this gives life to thee. B A B / / / U U / U U U / C 2 4 6 8 10 D C D E F E F G G

18. 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.

19. The End. . . More or Less. . . .