Thursday, Jan. 29- Poetry - Sonnets

A sonnet is a poem consisting of fourteen lines of iambic pentameter.  There are two types of sonnets: Italian and Shakespearean.  

The Italian Sonnet consists of one octave (eight lines) and a sestet (six lines), usually rhyming abbaabba, cdecde. 

The Shakespearean Sonnet consists of three quatrains (four lines each) and a final rhyming couplet (two lines); the rhyme scheme is usually abab, cdcd, efef, gg.

ASSIGNMENT: Today, we have two Poems of the Day. One is a Shakespearean sonnet, one is an Italian sonnet. Look at how the different structure brings different rhythms to the poems.

“Sonnet 18” by William Shakespeare

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.

Sometime 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 thy eternal summer shall not fade,
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st,
Nor shall death brag thou wand’rest in his shade,
When in eternal lines to Time thou grow’st.

So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

“Sonnet 26” by Giacomo da Lentini

I’ve seen it rain on sunny days
And seen the darkness flash with light
And even lightning turn to haze,
Yes, frozen snow turn warm and bright
And sweet things taste of bitterness
And what is bitter taste most sweet
And enemies their love confess
And good, close friends no longer meet.

Yet stranger things I’ve seen of love
Who healed my wounds by wounding me.
The fire in me he quenched before;
The life he gave was the end thereof,
The fire that slew eluded me.
Once saved from love, love now burns more.