Poetry lecture 1.
Sonnet (十四行诗)
The sonnet has been a popular literary form in English since the sixteenth century, when it was adopted from the Italian sonnetto, meaning “little song.” A sonnet consist of fourteen lines, usually written in iambic pentameter. (抑扬五步格式) Because the sonnet has been such a favorite form, writers have experimented with many variations on its essential structure. Nevertheless, there are two basic types of sonnets: the Italian and the English.
The Italian sonnet (also known as the Petrarchan sonnet, from the fourteenth-century Italian poet Petrarch) divides into 2 parts. The first eight lines (the octave) typically rhyme abbaabba. The final six lines (the sestet) may vary; common patterns are cdecde, cdcdcd, and cdccdc. Very often the octave presents a situation, attitude, or problem that the sestet comments upon or resolves, as in John Keat’s “On First Looking into Chapman’s Homer.”
John Keats (1795-1821)
On first looking into Chapman’s Homer.
Much have I traveled in the realms of gold, [A]
And many goodly states and kingdoms seen; [B]
Round many westerns islands have I been [B]
Which bards in fealty to Apollo hold. [A]
Oft of one wide expanse had I been told [A]
That deep-browed Homer ruled as his demesne; [B]
Yet did I never breathe its pure serene. [B]
Till I heard Chapman speak out loud and bold: [A]
Then felt I like some watcher of the skies [C]
When a new planet swims into his ken; [D]
Or like stout Cortez when with eagle eyes [C]
He stared at the Pacific- and all his men [D]
Looked at each other with a wild surmise- [C]
Silent, upon a peak in Darien. [D]
Consideration for Critical thinking and writing
1 First Response. How do the images shift from the octave to the sestet?
How does the tone change? Does the meaning change?
2 What is the controlling metaphor of this poem?
3 What is it that the speaker discover?
4 How does the rhythm of the lines change between the octave and the sestet? How does that change reflect the tones of both the octave and the sestet?
5 Does Keat’s mistake concerning Cortes and Balboa affect your reading of the poem? Explain why or why not.
The Italian sonnet pattern is also used in the next sonnet, but notice that the thematic break between octave and sestet comes within the line 9 rather than between lines 8 and 9. This unconventional break helps to reinforce the speaker’s impatience with the conventional attitudes he describes.
William Wordsworth (1770-1850)
The world is too much with us
The world is too much with us; late and soon,
Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers;
Little we see in Nature that is ours;
We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!
This Sea that bares her bosom to the moon;
The winds that will be howling at all hours,
And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers;
For this, for everything, we are out of tune;
It moves us not.- Great God! I’d rather be
A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn;
So might I, standing on this pleasant lea,
Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn;
Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea;
Or hear old Triton blow his wreathed horn.
Consideration For Critical Thinking And Writing
1 First response. What is the speaker’s complaint in this sonnet? How do the conditions described affect him?
2 Look up “Proteus” and”Triton” What do these mythological allusions contribute to the sonnet’s tune?
3 What is the effect of the personification of the sea and wind in the octave?
The English sonnet, more commonly known as the Shakespearean sonnet, is organized into tree quatrains and a couplet, which typically rhyme abab cdcd efef gg. This rhyme scheme is more suited to English poetry because English has fewer rhyming words than Italian. English sonnets because of their four-part organization also have more flexibility about where the thematic breaks can occur. Frequently, however, the most pronounced break or turn comes with the concluding couplet.
In the following Shakespearean Sonnet, the three quatrains compare the speaker’s loved one to a summer’s day and explain why the loved one is even more lovely. The couplet bestows eternal beauty and love upon both the loved one and the sonnet.
William Shakespeare (1564-1616)
Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?
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.
Sometimes too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimmed;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance, or nature’s changing course, untrimmed.
But they eternal summer shall not fade,
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st
Nor shall death brag thou grow’st.
So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.
Consideration for critical thinking and writing
1 Describe the shift in tome and subject matter that begins in line 9.
2 Why is the speaker’s loved one more lovely than a summer’s day? What qualities does he admire in the loved one?
3 What does the couplet say about the relation between art and love?
4 Which syllables are stressed in the final line? How do these syllables relate toe the meaning of the line?
Sonnets have been the vehicles of all kinds of subject, including love, death, politics, and cosmic questions. Although most sonnets tend to treat their subject seriously, this fixed form does not mean a fixed expression; humor is also possible in it. Compare this next Shakespearean sonnet with the last one. They are, finally, both love poems, but their tones are markedly different.
William Shakespeare
My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun
My mistress’s eyes are nothing like the sun;
Coral is far more read 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 damasked red and white,
But no such roses I see 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 will 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 thing my love as rare
As any she, belied with false compare.