The Shakespearean Sonnet or English Sonnet consists of three quatrains (four-line stanzas), rhyming abab cdcd efef, and a couplet (a two-line stanza), rhyming gg. Because each new stanza introduces a new set of rhyming sounds, the Shakespearean sonnet is well-suited to English, which is less richly endowed than Italian with rhyming words. As with the structure of the Petrarchan sonnet, that of the Shakespearean sonnet influences the kinds of ideas that will be developed in it. For example, the three quatrains may be used to present three parallel images, with the couplet used to tie them together or to interpret their significance. Or the quatrains can offer three points in an argument, with the couplet serving to drive home the conclusion.
With the inauguration of the 17th century, Baroque attitudes swept through Europe; and in England, the period came under Samuel Johnson’s nomenclature Metaphysical Poetry. Sonnet 10, from John Donne’s Holy Sonnets, a powerful apostrophe to death, is an illustration of the rhetoric and tenor of the time.
Directions: Please read through the poems below. Compose a blog response commenting on the sonnets in some thoughtful way. You may be comparing and contrasting works, commenting on a particular poem that moved you, or examining a cross-section of works. NOTE: If you finished, please peruse Sonnet Central, and add to your post. You may cut and paste any sonnets you would likt to share with your comments.
Italian Sonnet
translated by Anthony Mortimer
The eyes I spoke of once in words that burn,
the arms and hands and feet and lovely face
that took me from myself for such a space
of time and marked me out from other men;
the waving hair of unmixed gold that shone,
the smile that flashed with the angelic rays
that used to make this earth a paradise,
are now a little dust, all feeling gone;
and yet I live, grief and disdain to me,
left where the light I cherished never shows,
in fragile bark on the tempestuous sea.
Here let my loving song come to a close;
the vein of my accustomed art is dry,
and this, my lyre, turned at last to tears.
Translation 2 (Notice the difference in sound and cadence)
The eyes I spoke of with such warmth,
The arms and hands and feet and face
Which took me away from myself
And marked me out from other people;
The waving hair of pure shining gold,
And the flash of her angelic smile,
Which used to make a paradise on earth,
Are a little dust, that feels nothing.
And yet I live, for which I grieve and despise myself,
Left without the light I loved so much,
In a great storm on an unprotected raft.
Here let there be an end to my loving song:
The vein of my accustomed invention has run dry,
And my lyre is turned to tears.
Original Italian (How is the form better suited to Italian)
Gli occhi di ch'io parlai sì caldamente,
et le braccia et le mani e i piedi e 'l viso,
che m'avean sì da me stesso diviso,
et fatto singular da l'altra gente;
le crespe chiome d'òr puro lucente
'l lampeggiar de l'angelico riso,
che solean fare in terra un paradiso,
poca polvere son, che nulla sente.
Et io pur vivo, onde mi doglio e sdegno,
rimaso senza 'l lume ch'amai tanto,
in gran fortuna e 'n disarmato legno.
Or sia qui fine al mio amoroso canto:
secca è la vena de l'usato ingegno,
et la cetera mia rivolta in pianto.
The English Sonnet
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 prov'd,
I never writ, nor no man ever lov'd.
Metaphysical Poetry
"Sonnet 10" by John DonneDeath be not proud, though some have calléd thee
Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so;
For those whom thou think’st thou dost overthrow
Die not, poor Death, nor yet canst thou kill me.
From rest and sleep, which but thy pictures be,
Much pleasure; then from thee much more must flow,
And soonest our best men with thee do go,
Rest of their bones, and soul’s delivery.
Thou art slave to fate, chance, kings, and desperate men,
And dost with poison, war, and sickness dwell,
And poppy or charms can make us sleep as well
And better than thy stroke; why swell’st thou then?
One short sleep past, we wake eternally
And death shall be no more, Death thou shalt die.
Modern English Sonnet
"Sonnet 43" by Elizabeth Barrett Browning
How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of Being and ideal Grace.
I love thee to the level of everyday’s
Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light.
I love thee freely, as men strive for Right;
I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise.
I love thee with the passion put to use
In my old griefs, and with my childhood’s faith.
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
With my lost saints—I love thee with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life!—and if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after death.
Harlem Renaissance
"America" by Claude McKayAlthough she feeds me bread of bitterness,
And sinks into my throat her tiger’s tooth,
Stealing my breath of life, I will confess
I love this cultured hell that tests my youth!
Her vigor flows like tides into my blood,
Giving me strength erect against her hate.
Her bigness sweeps my being like a flood.
Yet as a rebel fronts a king in state,
I stand within her walls with not a shred
Of terror, malice, not a word of jeer.
Darkly I gaze into the days ahead,
And see her might and granite wonders there,
Beneath the touch of time’s unerring hand,
Like priceless treasures sinking in the sand.
Modernism
pity this busy monster, manunkind,
not. Progress is a comfortable disease:
your victim (death and life safely beyond)
plays with the bigness of his littleness
—electrons deify one razorblade
into a mountainrange; lenses extend
unwish through curving wherewhen till unwish
returns on its unself.
A world of made
is not a world of born—pity poor flesh
and trees, poor stars and stones, but never this
fine specimen of hypermagical
ultraomnipotence. We doctors know
a hopeless case if—listen: there’s a hell
of a good universe next door; let’s go.
Post Modernism
The notes like little fishes vanish with a wink of tails,
Man’s heart expands to tinker with his car
For this is Sunday morning, Fate’s great bazaar;
Regard these means as ends, concentrate on this Now,
And you may grow to music or drive beyond Hindhead anyhow,
Take corners on two wheels until you go so fast
That you can clutch a fringe or two of the windy past,
That you can abstract this day and make it to the week of time
A small eternity, a sonnet self-contained in rhyme.
But listen, up the road, something gulps, the church spire
Opens its eight bells out, skulls’ mouths which will not tire
To tell how there is no music or movement which secures
Escape from the weekday time. Which deadens and endures.
Dear God, Our Heavenly Father, Gracious Lord,
Mother Love and Maker, Light Divine,
Atomic Fingertip, Cosmic Design,
First Letter of the Alphabet, Last Word,
Mutual Satisfaction, Cash Award,
Auditor Who Approves Our Bottom Line,
Examiner Who Says That We Are Fine,
Oasis That All Sands Are Running Toward.
I can say almost anything about you,
O Big Idea, and with each epithet,
Create new reasons to believe or doubt you,
Black Hole, White Hole, Presidential Jet.
But what’s the anything I must leave out? You
Solve nothing but the problems that I set.
"God’s Secretary" by R.S. Gwynn
Her e-mail inbox always overflows.
Her outbox doesn’t get much use at all.
She puts on hold the umpteen-billionth call
As music oozes forth to placate those
Who wait, then disconnect. Outside, wind blows,
Scything pale leaves. She sees a sparrow fall
Fluttering to a claw-catch on a wall.
Will He be in today? God only knows.
She hasn’t seen His face—He’s so aloof.
She’s long resigned He’ll never know or love her
But still can wish there were some call, some proof
That He requires a greater service of her.
Fingers of rain now drum upon the roof,
Coming from somewhere, somewhere far above her.
Her e-mail inbox always overflows.
Her outbox doesn’t get much use at all.
She puts on hold the umpteen-billionth call
As music oozes forth to placate those
Who wait, then disconnect. Outside, wind blows,
Scything pale leaves. She sees a sparrow fall
Fluttering to a claw-catch on a wall.
Will He be in today? God only knows.
She hasn’t seen His face—He’s so aloof.
She’s long resigned He’ll never know or love her
But still can wish there were some call, some proof
That He requires a greater service of her.
Fingers of rain now drum upon the roof,
Coming from somewhere, somewhere far above her.
With a first line taken from the tv listings
A man is haunted by his father’s ghost.
Boy meets girl while feuding families fight.
A Scottish king is murdered by his host.
Two couples get lost on a summer night.
A hunchback murders all who block his way.
A ruler’s rivals plot against his life.
A fat man and a prince make rebels pay.
A noble Moor has doubts about his wife.
An English king decides to conquer France.
A duke learns that his best friend is a she.
A forest sets the scene for this romance.
An old man and his daughters disagree.
A Roman leader makes a big mistake.
A sexy queen is bitten by a snake.
Millennial Poems
“Lines Composed on April 23, 2016, on the 400th Anniversary of His Death” by Wilude Scabere
Shall I compare his language to a grave?
It is more lively and more flowery.
His rough-shook words refuse to be death’s slave.
No tomb’s as showy or so showery.
A sepulchre, though hard as rock, erodes,
and shrines do often lose their lustre’s prime,
while monuments, though nice, make poor abodes,
and sadly catacombs decay in time.
But Shakespeare’s language will not go away.
Unceasingly, his lines play in the mind.
They pop up even on a summer’s day.
Unlike a crypt, they will not stay behind.
Alas, poor Oracle, his song goes on,
despite all efforts of oblivion.
“A Hero” by Evan Mantyk
(Note: Zhen-Shan-Ren, Truth, Compassion and Tolerance, are the three main principles of the spiritual practice Falun Gong, which, along with Christianity, is persecuted in China)
These are the weathered shoes worn by the Jew,
So cracked from all the miles walked since he fled.
These are the slave’s strong legs like trunks that grew
And worked so hard until he’s beaten dead.
This is the heart of Christians who’re hemmed in
by beasts, while Romans laugh at them and yell.
These poisoned lips of Socrates destined
To die, and yet in virtue ever dwell.
This banner is the shield of Spartan men
Outnumbered by a thousand foes to one;
Its moral words in Chinese, Zhen-Shan-Ren,
Are spears of truth that no one can outrun.
The Falun Gong man now before you stands,
A hero for all times and for all lands.
