bookmix
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Posted:
May 19th 2009 at 05:30:39 PM
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What's a Sonnet
Anne,
My name is Mark and I am the Bookrix guy for the US and Canada. I found your question interesting and realize the I could not really answer it in a way that would make sense. So that being said I stole the answer from the internet. I hope this helps!
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Sonnet is a poem of fourteen lines....
each line has ten syllables...and the syllables are arranged in the pattern.....unstress-stress-unstress-str... and so on
that means each line has five unstress and five stress syllables arranged alternatively.
they also follow specific rhyme schemes....
There are two types of sonnets on the basis of rhyme schemes...
one is elizabethan sonnet and the other is
petrarchan sonnet.
by Elizabethan Sonnet, we mean mainly the sonnet pattern of Shakespeare and Spenser.......
Both of them wrote sonnets with a structure containing three quatrains and a couplet.
The quatrains are stanzas containing four lines each.
So three quatrains make 12 lines and the couplet (2lines)....total makes it 14 lines....
But Spenser and Shakespeare differs in their rhyme schemes...
Shakespeare used the rhyme scheme.........abab, cdcd, efef, gg
Spenser used....abab, bcbc, cdcd, ee
Shakespeare's pattern is more structural, but Spenser's pattern is more musical. Spenser linked the first quatrain to the second and second to the third using the same rhymes....
Shakespeare's sonnet
Sonnet 76
Why is my verse so barren of new pride,
So far from variation or quick change?
Why with the time do I not glance aside
To new-found methods, and to compounds strange?
Why write I still all one, ever the same,
And keep invention in a noted weed,
That every word doth almost tell my name,
Showing their birth, and where they did proceed?
O! know sweet love I always write of you,
And you and love are still my argument;
So all my best is dressing old words new,
Spending again what is already spent:
For as the sun is daily new and old,
So is my love still telling what is told.
see the rhyme scheme
pride, change, aside, strange.....abab
same, weed, name, procedd.....cdcd
you, argument, new, spent.......efef
old, told.......gg
Spenser's Sonnet
Sonnet 81 from Amoretti
ONE day I wrote her name upon the strand,
But came the waves and washèd it away:
Again I wrote it with a second hand,
But came the tide and made my pains his prey.
Vain man (said she) that dost in vain assay
A mortal thing so to immortalise;
For I myself shall like to this decay,
And eke my name be wipèd out likewise.
Not so (quod I); let baser things devise
To die in dust, but you shall live by fame;
My verse your virtues rare shall eternise,
And in the heavens write your glorious name:
Where, when as Death shall all the world subdue,
Our love shall live, and later life renew.
see the rhyme scheme....
strand, away, hand, prey.........abab
assay, immortalise, decay, likewise....bcbc
devise, fame, eternise, name........cdcd
subdue, renew....ff
Petrarchan sonnet is divided into an octave and a sestet. An octave is a stanza of eight lines and sestet is a stanza of six lines...so octave+sestet makes 14 lines.
Petrarchan sonnets follow the rhyme scheme
abba...abba....cde...cde... or
abba...abba....cdc...dcd
Example
here is a sonnet by John Keats...It is written in Petrarchan style
Much have I travell'd in the realms of gold,
And many goodly states and kingdoms seen;
Round many western islands have I been
Which bards in fealty to Apollo hold.
Oft of one wide expanse had I been told
That deep-brow'd Homer ruled as his demesne:
Yet did I never breathe its pure serene
Till I heard Chapman speak out loud and bold:
Then felt I like some watcher of the skies
When a new planet swims into his ken;
Or like stout Cortez, when with eagle eyes
He stared at the Pacific—and all his men
Look'd at each other with a wild surmise—
Silent, upon a peak in Darien.
see the rhyme scheme
gold, seen, been, hold.....gold (a) seen (b) been (b) gold (a)
told, demesne, serene, bold...told (a) demesne (b)
serene (b) bold (b)
{demesne is pronounced as 'demeen'}
skies, ken, eyes....cdc
men, surmise, darien...dcd..
understood?
thats all about sonnets...
I shall give you an example also for the rhythm pattern in a sonnet...that is the stress...unstress pattern
see this line
The curfew tolls the knell of parting day
it has ten syllables
The/ cur/ few/ tolls/ the/ knell/ of/ part/ ing/ day
and the stresses are on 'cur', 'tolls', 'knell', 'part' and 'day'
i hope you understood...
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