Effects of Exercise on Breathing Rate

Effects of Exercise on Breathing Rate

Explain what you have discovered about the sonnet form from your

reading of three of the following poems: 'After Death', 'Youth Gone,

Beauty Gone', 'Two Pursuits', 'Endurance' and 'Remember'- Do you think

the content of these poems is well suited to the sonnet from?

The three poems I have chosen are 'After Death', 'Youth Gone, Beauty

Gone' and 'Remember'. I have chosen 'After Death' and 'Remember'

because they give very different, unstereotypical ideas about death,

and 'Youth Gone, Beauty Gone' ties in with these because it is

referring to growing old. Reading and examining these poems I have

discovered that a sonnet has a very definite structure, which is

emphasised by a particular rhyme scheme. Sonnets also have a

distinctive rhythm. All three sonnets have the same style of language

and imagery, and use of a personal voice.

There is a very set structure to a sonnet; each sonnet is fourteen

lines long, and has only one stanza. These sonnets are written in the

Petrachan sonnet from, which means that within the one one stanza, the

sonnet is divided into two sections: the first eight lines are called

an octave, the final six lines are called a sestet. These divisions

can be clearly shown by the rhyme scheme. In the octave, the rhyme

scheme is ABBA ABBA, and then in the sestet, two lines of CD and E are

used in any variation, except that there cannot be a rhyming couplet

to finish the sonnet. For example, the rhyme scheme of 'After Death'

is ABBA ABBA, CDEEDCand in 'Remember', the rhyme scheme is ABBA ABBA,

CDDECE.

By using As and Bs in the first section and Cs, Ds and Es in the

second, the progression to the second section is very clear, which is

also shown in the content. Though there is generally only one idea

that is being explored in a sonnet, there is a definite distinction

between the two sections of the sonnet by the development of the idea.

In the first section, the idea is introduced to us and in the second