Origins and Explanations of The Sonnet
The sonnet originates in Italy in the 12th and 13th century. The term
comes from the Italian for "little song" and the best known Italian
sonneteers were Dante and Francesco Petrarca. Petrarch proved most
influential on the sonnet's successive history, leaving his
predominant theme of secular love as well as the form itself to
subsequent poets. In 14th century Italy the sonnet was clearly
established in as a major form of love poetry.
The sonnet is a lyric poem comprised of 14 rhyming lines of equal
length utilising a variety of different rhyme schemes, but usually in
five-foot iambic pentameters in English. While there is a wide number
of varying classifications two essential core types are the bases for
the various modifications by experimenters.
The sonnet was introduced to England by Thomas Wyatt in the 16th
century after he learned of the form during his travels in Spain and
Italy. While he is more widely known for his other lyrics, Wyattwrote
32 sonnets in the form that has come to be known as the Petrarchan
sonnet. A friend of Wyatt, Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey shares credit
for introducing the sonnet to England. Surrey's work deviates somewhat
both thematically and structurally from Petrarch's conventions and
represents a more complete "taming" of the sonnet into the English
language. He introduced what came to be known as the Elizabethan
sonnet.
The popularity of the sonnet blossomed in the Elizabethan era relying
on the standard subject matter of the torments of sexual love usually
within a polite love convention.
The sonnet has become the most popular and enduring form...
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...ress to
be put on the sound that is being repeated. Another sentence with a
large amount of alliteration in it is:-
"And wears man's smudge and shares man's smell:"
This particular sentence flows very easily because of all the 's'
sounds which appears in nearly every word. This makes the sentence
have more emphasis on it than usual which keeps the reader drawn in to
the poem because of all the same sounding words. I like it how the
poet uses this amount of alliteration in the poem because it creates
emphasis where other poems wouldn't which makes the poem more
interesting and exciting.
Another sentence with alliteration that I like is:-
"It will flame out, like shining from shook foil;"
You can't capture shining from shook foil. You can only feel it, see
it and take it inside yourself and let it echo.
In “Sonnet,” Billy Collins satirizes the classical sonnet’s volume to illustrate love in only “…fourteen lines…” (1). Collins’s poem subsists as a “Sonnet,” though there exists many differences in it countering the customarily conventional structure of a sonnet. Like Collins’s “Sonnet,” Shakespeare’s “Sonnet 130” also faces incongruities from the classic sonnet form as he satirizes the concept of ideal beauty that was largely a convention of writings and art during the Elizabethan era. Although these poem venture through different techniques to appear individually different from the classic sonnet, the theme of love makes the poems analogous.
Repetition and rhyme was used a copious amount. Rhyme was used at the end of every line in every stanza making it easy and an easy flow when reading for example; pride, inside, rains, slain are all important words being empathized by the main topic and theme but makes it more pleasant to read. Another device used through the poem is repetition which is used to highlight words that are important to the meaning of the poem but also for the listener and readers to feel emotion towards this subject. Example: We honour was repeated serval times as the poet wants people to honour more. Also ‘they’ were mentioned an abundance amount of times, referring to the soldiers or the fallen saying ‘they fight’. Alliteration also has an impact when reciting the poem as it is a repeating on a constant sound which makes it easier to comprehend what the message is or the tone of how the poet wants the words to come across for example Suicide Stealth is highlighting the ‘S’ in the words to add emotion and
The use of alliteration also lends to the rhythm of the tale, it is almost sing-song like, making it easier to remember. The author uses imagery to skillfully and artfully draw the reader into the story. Here the
The conceit, characterization and tone of the one hundred and forty third sonnet make this particular sonnet interesting to analyze. The collection of sonnets was written by William Shakespeare around the mid-1590s and published by Thomas Thorpe in 1609. “Sonnet 143” describes a woman who "sets down her babe and makes all swift dispatch." Her attention has been restrained by the idea of taking possession of a feathered creature that has run away (line 3). In this sonnet, Shakespeare creates a rivalry of role-play between a man in pursuit of a woman, who is compared to a housewife and a mother, and the love interest the woman in pursuing. The speaker is in desperate pursuit of the housewife, like a child who wishes to be pacified and kissed
This is an enjoyable sonnet that uses nature imagery, found extensively in Petrarca, that Shakespeare uses to get his point across. Not much explication is needed, aside the sustained images of nature, to fully understand its intent, but I would like to point out a peculiar allusion. When reading line 3, "the violet past prime" has made me think of Venus and Adonis. In the end, Adonis melts into the earth and a violet sprouts where his body was, which Venus then places in her heart, signifying the love she has for him. Reading this into the poem makes the few following lines more significant. Having Adonis portrayed as the handsome youth, Shakespeare is alluding to the death of youth (in general and to the young man) through the sonnet. In the next line, it is not certain if "sable" is an adjective or a noun and if "curls" is a noun, referring to hair (which is plausible) or a verb modifying "sable." Invoking the allusion to Adonis here, Shakespeare portends that if Adonis did live longer, he too would have greying hair; thus, Shakespeare sees ["behold"] an Adonis figure, the young man, past his youth.
The author of the poem relies a multiple combination of uses of figurative language including using alliteration, assonance, and usage of parallel structure. Alliteration was presented multiple times through the poem, with the usage of musical rhythm and the flow of the overall writing. The usage of alliteration made every stanza stand out to create a flow with reading the poem. The first type of alliteration that is present in the poem is the repeated sounds in the beginning
A sonnet is a lyric poem of fourteen lines, following one of several set of rhyme-schemes. Critics of the sonnet have recognized varying classifications, but the two characteristic sonnet types are the Italian type (Petrarchan) and the English type (Shakespearean). Shakespeare is still nowadays seen as in idol in English literature. No one can read one of his works and be left indifferent. His way of writing is truly fascinating. His sonnets, which are his most popular work, reflect several strong themes. Several arguments attempt to find the full content of those themes.
William Shakespeare was an excellent writer, who throughout his life created well written pieces of literatures which are valued and learned about in modern times. One of his many works are 154 Sonnets, within these Sonnets there are several people Shakespeare “writes to”, such as fair youth, dark lady and rival poet. Sonnet 20 is written to fair youth, or in other words a young man. The idea of homosexuality appears in Sonnet 20 after the speaker admits his love towards the young man.
Roche, Thomas P. Jr. Petrarch and the English Sonnet Sequences. New York: AMS Press, 1989. Print.
“The rose embodies only the perfect moment that intervenes between fulfillment and decay. Describing it, Shakespeare makes no attempt to speak in a biographical voice, or that of a dramatically defined persona. It is simply “we” who speak, as the voice of a consensus, and our desire for preserving the flower’s beauty is no less natural than its coming decline. Such a confluence, using “we” to unite temporarily speaker, reader, and the ordinary world, has a justification of its own” (Weiser, 3).
Sonnet 71 is one of 154 sonnets written by William Shakespeare, and although it may rank fairly low on the popularity scale, it clearly demonstrates a pessimistic and morbid tone. With the use of metaphors, personification, and imagery this sonnet focuses on the poet’s feelings about his death and how the young should mourn him after he has died. Throughout the sonnet, there appears to be a continual movement of mourning, and with a profound beauty that can only come from Shakespeare. Shakespeare appeals to our emotional sense of “feeling” with imagery words like vile, dead, be forgot, and decay, and we gain a better understanding of the message and feelings dictated by the speaker.
This sonnet rhymed abab cdcd efef gg form. Most of his sonnets were written in the 1590s at the height of the vogue, but they were not published until 1609. The first 126 are addressed to a young man; the remainder (with the exception of the last two, which are conventional sonnets on Cupid) are addressed to an unknown "Dark Lady." Whether or not Shakespeare laid bare his heart in his sonnets, as many critics have contended, they are his most personal poems.
Lackluster love is the subject postulated in both sonnets, Petrarch 90 and Shakespeare 130. This is a love that endures even after beauteous love has worn off, or in Petrarch, a love that never was. The Petrarchan sonnet utilizes fantasy to describe love. It depicts love that is exaggerated and unrealistic. Shakespeare’s sonnet, on the other hand, is very sarcastic but it is more realistic as compared to the Petrarch 90. Petrarchan sonnets, also called Italian sonnets were the first sonnets to be written, and they have remained the most common sonnets (Hollander 28). They were named after the Italian poet Petrarch. Its structure takes the form of two stanzas, the first one an octave, in that, it has eight lines, and the next stanza is a sestet, meaning that it has six lines. The rhyme scheme suits the Italian language, which has the feature of being rhyme rich, and it, can take the forms of abbaabba, cdcdcd, or cdecde. These sonnets present an answerable charge in the first stanza, and a turn in the sestet. The sestet is the counter argument of the octave.
William Shakespeare (1564-1616) lived in a time of religious turbulence. During the Renaissance people began to move away from the Church. Authors began to focus on the morals of the individual and on less lofty ideals than those of the Middle Ages. Shakespeare wrote one-hundred fifty-four sonnets during his lifetime. Within these sonnets he largely explored romantic love, not the love of God. In Sonnet 29 Shakespeare uses specific word choice and rhyme to show the reader that it is easy to be hopeful when life is going well, but love is always there, for rich and poor alike, even when religion fails.
1-2: 'As fast as time takes hold of you, you do grow (in attributes) as you leave one of yourself [an heir] behind'; or, more generally, 'if you're persuing two things, drop one and you'll increase in that aspect that much more'. 3-4: 'And the children to whom you (would) have given life, you can call your own (self) when you stray from youth'. 5-6: 'Within children (procreation) resides wisdom, beauty and increase (of a good life), however, without children, you are prone to folly, aging and the rest of your life without warming love (of children)'. 7-8: 'If everyone acted as you do in not bearing children, generations would be no more, and the [or your] world would die within (your) sixty years'. 9-10: 'Let those people who Nature decides shall not have heirs perish, because they are "harsh, featureless, and rude"'. 13-14: 'She has you as a stamp (for sealing wax, not the wax itself), and meant for you to reproduce more of yourself through children, and not to let yourself die without not doing so (because life is everlasting through