Name Class AP/DC Date A Brief Overview READ Chapter 4: If It s Square, It s a Sonnet from Thomas Foster s How to Read Literature like a Professor Considerations As You Read What poetic forms does Foster mention in the first paragraphs of the chapter? Why does Foster suggest this is the only form we need to study? What is the geometry of the sonnet? What creates this shape? What meter is the sonnet typically written in? How many units of meaning does a sonnet have? Briefly sketch the structure of each of the following. Be sure to label the parts of each. Petrarchan Sonnet Elizabethan Sonnet Form Key Words Petrarchan Sonnet Octave Sonnet Elizabethan Sonnet Sestet
Here s a copy of the Rossetti poem referenced in this chapter for you to annotate as you read. What is your initial reaction to the Rossetti poem? Now, draw a line between the octave and the sestet. Next, label the major point of each unit in the right-hand margin. Why does Foster say it is more difficult to write a short poem than a long poem? 2
A Brief Overview Expanded with Introductory Analysis WATCH Shakespeare s Sonnets: Crash Course Literature 304 T/F WIll Shakespeare invented the sonnet. Every line in a sonnet has ten syllables consisting of iambs. An iamb = duh-duh or DUH-duh (Circle the correct one, duh!) The last line of last will and testament said, My chest of books divide among my friends. Where did the sonnet get its start? Earliest examples come from. When did the English sonnet start? How many sonnets do we have from Will Shakespeare? 156 126 26 The bulk of Shakespeare s sonnets are addressed to a fair young man or a dark lady? What do the sonnets suggest is the reason that poetry was important? Is this an idea common to Shakespeare alone? 3
Sonnet 18 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. Crash Course Analysis Extended metaphor--for what? Peer Analysis My Analysis Other Thoughts 4
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. Crash Course Analysis Extended metaphor--for what? Peer Analysis My Analysis Other Thoughts 5
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. Crash Course Analysis How does the speaker feel about his love of the dark lady? Peer Analysis My Analysis What does W.S. do in this poem that is unique? Other Thoughts 6