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Sonnet 18

Sonnet 18. Scanned!. Scansion rules of thumb. English, spoken naturally, gives weight to certain words while emphasizing other words and syllables less. Meter is about expectation and often we emphasize syllables in accordance with our expectation.

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Sonnet 18

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  1. Sonnet 18 Scanned!

  2. Scansion rules of thumb English, spoken naturally, gives weight to certain words while emphasizing other words and syllables less. Meter is about expectation and often we emphasize syllables in accordance with our expectation. We tend not to stress “particles.” Particles are the linking, non-content words like prepositions (by, from, to, with), pronouns (his, my, your, they), articles (the, an, a) and conjunctions (or, and, but). Sometimes, however, particles will be stressed, usually the center particle in a string of three.

  3. Scansion Rules of Thumb cont. We tend to stress single syllable content words (nouns, main verbs, adjectives and adverbs, interjections, interrogative pronouns; and rhymes). There will always be a stress in a polysyllabic word and usually that stress falls on the operative part of the word (like hoping and quickly). Practice stressing polysyllabic words both ways to determine their stress. The wrong way sounds really wrong.

  4. Scansion rules of thumb cont. Remember, perfect meter is actually rather bad meter. There will be substitutions that enliven the meter. Metric Feet: Iamb: divine Trochee: meter Spondee: no way Pyrrhic: of a Anapest: Japanese Dactyl: lavender Trochees are extremely common substitutions in iambic pentameter. Anapests are common as well. Spondees, however, are very disruptive of the meter and tend to create extreme emphasis.

  5. Lines 1 and 2 Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day? Thou art more lovely and more temperate:

  6. Lines 3 and 4 Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May, And summer’s lease hath all too short a date:

  7. Lines 5 and 6 Sometimes too hot the eye of heaven shines, And often is his gold complexion dimm’d; dimm’d

  8. Lines 7 and 8 And every fair from fair sometimes declines, By chance or nature’s changing course untrimm’d;

  9. Lines 9 and 10 But thy eternal summer shall not fade Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest;

  10. Lines 11 and 12 Nor shall Death brag thou wander’st in his shade, When in eternal lines to time thou growest:

  11. Lines 13 and 14 So long as men can breath or eyes can see, So long lives this and this gives life to thee.

  12. Sonnet 116 Sample Presentation!

  13. |x /| x /|x /|x /| x / | O no! it is an ever-fixed mark | x /| x /| x /| x / |x /| x That looks on tempests and is never shaken; |x /| x / | x /|x /| x /| It is the star to every wandering bark, | x / | x / | x / | x / | x /| x Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken. Feminine ending: when the closing foot of a line ends with an extra unstressed syllable.

  14. Discussion Questions: Why would Shakespeare use the same metrical irregularity to two different ends? Is there a way to read both feminine endings as doing the same kind of work for the poem?

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