Original Shakespearean Sonnet
Senior English 243: ShakespeareName:
Original Shakespearean Sonnet
Assignment: Write an original Shakespearean sonnet on any topic of your choosing. The sonnet’s content may be serious or comical.
REQUIREMENTS
A. FORM
1. Length. The sonnet contains the traditional 14 lines.
2. Rhyme. The sonnet uses the Shakespearean rhyme pattern: abab cdcd efef gg
- Try to make your rhymes as natural to your poem as possible, as if each word you choose is just the right word for your story or message. This is hard to do, though.
Check out the website rhymezone.com for help with rhyming. It’s terrific!
3. Iambic Pentameter. The sonnet uses iambic pentameter in each of its 14 lines.
- ______Pentameter. Each line has 10 syllables, or five (penta--) iambic "feet" of two syllables each.
- [Do your best.] ______Iambic. Each line emphasizes the iambic rhythm:
daDUM daDUM daDUM daDUM daDUM
note: there should be no or, at least,few awkward feet, in which the da is emphasized and not the DUM.
B. STYLE
4. Alliteration. Two examples of alliteration—at least three consonant sounds in each line
5. Simile or Metaphor. One simile OR metaphor in the poem
C. CONTENT
Topic. Choose something as mundane as putting on your
shoes in the morning or eating breakfast cereal or as romantic as love or friendship—or anything in between.
Message. Whatever you choose, try to say something meaningful or significant. The conventional sonnet usually has a particular pattern regarding its presentation of ideas, which is as follows:
- the first eight lines (the first and second quatrains) set the scene or tell a story;
- lines 9-12 (the third quatrain) shifts the direction a bit and tells the critical part of the story or idea;
- the heroic couplet wraps up the sonnet
D. PUNCTUATION.
Normal punctuation. Punctuate as you would prose.
- Capitalization. The current convention is NOT to capitalize the first word of a new line, keeping the punctuation and capitalization normal.
Prologue to Romeo and Juliet
[Enter] Chorus
Two households, both alike in dignity
(In fair Verona, where we lay our scene),
From ancient grudge break to new mutiny,
Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean.
From forth the fatal loins of these two foes
A pair of star-crossed lovers take their life;
Whose misadventured piteous overthrows
Doth with their death bury their parents’ strife.
The fearful passage of their death-marked love
And the continuance of their parents’ rage,
Which, but their children’s end, naught could remove,
Is now the two hours’ traffic of our stage;
The which, if you with patient ears attend,
What here shall miss, our toil shall strive to mend.
Sonnet 18
William Shakespeare
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 fade,
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st,
Nor shall death brag thou wander'st 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.
Why I No Longer Eat Cream of Wheat
Alan Reinstein
When I was just a lad of eight or up,
I saw upon a box of Cream of Wheat
A chance to win a Scottish terrier pup,
A chance to have a dog lie at my feet.
“To have a chance to realize such a dream,
Just put,” it said, “some words upon a list,
From letters used in wheat and of and cream.”
I wrote so much I nearly sprained my wrist.
But when it came the time to send it in
With dreams of playing fetch out in the lawn,
I checked that box and saw to my chagrin
The deadline for the list was three weeks gone.
My dream of Scottie’s charm had passed away
And Cream of Wheat not since has warmed my day.
STUDENT SAMPLES
Untitled
The sun plays gently on the water's face,
its dappled fingers causing golden plains
lay calm until begins the children's race,
sidestepping rocks through fence's narrow lanes.
Small toes, unclad, wrap gently 'round the side,
damp gravel wet from misty morning's dew
a mirthful hoot and jump, preserving pride,
emerged in sudden winter, woke anew.
The churning waves disturbed by children's leaps,
run ransom through the confines of the pool
'till shivers start to plague the children's cheeks,
and mothers stand to exercise their rule.
With towel clutched and hair strewn all about,
rejoining only takes another shout.
Bread and Circus
Come, join the crowd of men both rich and poor,
and watch the battle fought with teeth or bone.
As people cheer and jeer and shout for more,
the fallen leave this world as cold as stone.
Applause and taunts await both bold and meek
as humans wave their bloody bits of bread.
To satisfy the bitter tastes, they seek
the circus round of battles for the dead.
In just a flash the crowd turns wild with fear,
and animals (once humans) chew and rip
at fearful neighbors, stiff, without a tear,
the match of swords, forgotten, with a slip.
More battles lost with minds so stale shall come,
with remnants left: the only blood-stained crumb.
Snowman (Contains two awkward lines—Can you find them?)
A lonely snowman stood in moonlight pale,
The moonbeams danced across his crystal face,
As the sun stole off it had left no trail,
Delighted in the winter’s cool embrace.
The snowman stood in silence every day,
And watched in silence as the world went by.
Though happy as he watched the children play
He was fearful that he soon would melt and die.
And every day the sun rose higher still,
The snowman feared the worst was soon to come.
Till one day he awoke to find himself
Half-melted ‘neath the rays of cheery sun.
And then the snowman knew it was all right,
For spring had come, the winter gone with might.