ENGLISH TWELVE SONNETS
THE SONNET
The sonnet is one of the most well known poem forms. It is distinct because of its 14 line length. If it’s not 14 lines, it’s not a sonnet. Its theme is often love. Its rhythm is iambic pentameter (5 feet of 2 beats = 10 beats per line). There are two common types of sonnets – the English sonnet and the Italian sonnet. In recognizing each type, the reader must be able to:
1. Decipher the rhyme scheme.
2. Recognize the stanza forms.
3. Recognize imagery and/or mood shift.
ENGLISH/SHAKESPEAREAN/ELIZABETHAN
Rhyme scheme: ababcdcdefefgg
Stanza form – 3 quatrains and a rhyming couplet
Imagery – usually a distinct image in each quatrain and the theme in the couplet
Mood – adheres to one general mood.
“Sonnet 116”
Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O no! it is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.
Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come:
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.
William Shakespeare
ITALIAN/PETRARCHAN SONNET
Rhyme scheme: abbaabbacdcdcd (There are a few variations in the sestet).
Stanza forms : Although the poem is usually written in one stanza, within this stanza there is a distinct octet and sestet.
Mood: between the octet and sestet there is a discernable shift of mood and focus.
“What Lips My Lips Have Kissed”
-1. What lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why,
-1. I have forgotten, and what arms have lain
-1. Under my head till morning; but the rain
-1. Is full of ghosts tonight, that tap and sigh
-1. Upon the glass and listen for reply,
-1. And in my heart there stirs a quiet pain
-1. For unremembered lads that not again
-1. Will turn to me at midnight with a cry.
-1. Thus in winter stands the lonely tree,
-1. Nor knows what birds have vanished one by one,
-1. Yet knows its boughs more silent than before:
-1. I cannot say what loves have come and gone,
-1. I only know that summer sang in me
-1. A little while, that in me sings no more.
- Edna St. Vincent Millay
WHICH ONE IS IT?
Look at the following sonnet and determine which type it is by :
1. Labelling the rhyme scheme.
2. Dividing into stanza form
3. Identifying imagery and mood.
"Two bubbles in a crystal bowl appear"
Two bubbles in a crystal bowl appear,
Born separately: round the opposing rims
Each for awhile in a charmed circle swims,
And shuns the other's touch, as if in fear.
A gold-fish rising breaks the mimic mere;
A thwart tide, traversing the surface, dims
The placid water: from the distant brims
The bubbles swept together are one sphere!
They might have perished singly; might have known
Life but not love, and living separate
Have ceased imperfect, sundered mate from mate;
And thou and I have walked the world alone,
And died so, if the strong storm had not blown
That swept us hither on the tides of fate.
John Barlas